Barely Holding On ll Rick Grimes Love Story
by MidgeEYoto
Summary: "I don't want answers anymore. I want my life back, I want my family back and I want things to be normal again." I said weakly, but with determination in my voice. Rick reached out his hand towards my shoulder, but I shrugged him away. "You can do this, Jade. We're your family now and we will make things normal again." {Character Limit won't let me put in the whole summary. . .}
1. Chapter 1

Darkness.

. . .

Darkness is all that surrounds me.

. . .

I feel as light as a feather, as if I'm floating on top of clouds.

. . .

It feels like I've been here for a lifetime.

. . .

I can still hear our pleas for him to stop echoing all around, it won't stop replaying in my head over and over again.

. . .

I see her face through the darkness, I try to reach out and touch her but she was gone.

. . .

I opened my eyes slowly into a squint, the sun had made the white room so bright. I waited for my eyes to get adjusted so I could look around. "Where am I. . ?" I thought as I began to look around the room, my eyes stopped on a monitor. I'm in a hospital, great. . . I got up from the bed and the tile felt cold on my feet, as I looked at my feet I noticed that I was wearing a hospital gown. When I began to touch the gowns material my head began to swirl, I instinctively leaned against the wall. I slid down the wall and began to mumble to myself, "How did I get here. . .?" I got up from the floor and started to head towards the bathroom for a drink of water, my throat was killing me. I grabbed a plastic cup that was sitting on the kitchen sink, filled it up with water, and drank it all.

I threw the plastic cup away and began to look at myself in the mirror, I looked awful. I felt my forehead and sighed, "Stitches, great. ." I instantly remembered everything, the car accident. Trevor took Kira and me on the road for a 'drive'. He was going too fast on a dirt road, we pleaded for him to stop over and over again but he just kept laughing at us while Kira was crying in the back seat. "We're just having some fun, darlin! Aren't we Jade!" Then we spun out of control and wrecked. My heart dropped, my mind began to race with thoughts of Kira. Was she okay? Did she also get hurt? I raced out of the bathroom and exited my hospital room.

As I entered the hallway I had to do a double-take, everything was chaos. I was so confused, there were papers everywhere, the lights flickered on and off. "What kind of hospital is this. . ? Is this some sort of prank?" I rubbed my temples, I had the worst headache ever and the thought of someone pulling a prank on me made me so angry. While I was taking the entire scene in I heard a quiet voice in the distance calling, "Nurse. . ! Help . . . !" I hurried towards the noise, there was a gurney in front of the door so I pushed it away and opened the door, when I entered the room I saw a man lying on the ground.

I quickly got to his side on the ground and started to help him up, he was breathing hard and slow. I got him settled up on the bed and went to the bathroom to get him a drink. I grabbed a plastic cup, filled it up with water and handed it to him. "Here, drink this." He nodded slowly and the water was gone in an instant. "Are you okay?" I asked as I sat down by him, looking at him with concern. He looked at the floor and nodded slowly, "Yea. . ."

"What's your name?" I asked, readjusting myself on the bed.

"Rick. . Rick Grimes, you? He said as he looked at me.

"I'm Jade Waldgrave." I gave him a weak smile.

I got up and offered Rick my shoulder, Rick got up and put his arm over the back of my neck for support, it took a while to get adjusted to his weight on me. "We should go see if there are any nurses, doctors, or someone around. . It was a mess out there." I said as I opened the door and we walked out. Rick was shocked to see how chaotic the hallway looked. "I know right?" I began, "They should really hire a maid." I smirked. As we were walking down the hallway I noticed that there was a horrid smell coming from somewhere, I didn't know if it was me, Rick or something else. I probably didn't have a shower for quite a while but I didn't know about him.

We stopped when we got to a reception desk, nobody was in sight. I moved Rick's arm away from me and grabbed the phone on the reception desk, I put the phone to my ear and began to dial my home phone number. Halfway through dialing the number I noticed there was no noise coming from it. "Damnit," I groaned and slammed down the phone in frustration. "This is too weird, someone should be here. ." I sighed and offered Rick my shoulder again.

We've been walking down these chaotic halls for God knows how long, this place was like a damned maze and we still haven't found anyone yet. I noticed that the ceiling began to have wires hanging from them. While we were walking I kept staring at them, wondering how that could've happened and then Rick stopped dead in his tracks. "What's wrong?" I asked, looking at him. He said nothing so I looked in the direction he was looking at, a door with the words, "Don't Open Dead Inside," I read aloud. "W-what? This can't be real." Like on cue, hands began to claw in between the open part of the door. "We gotta get outta here." Rick nodded and we proceeded to look for an exit in the maze of a hospital.

"So. ." I said, breaking the silence. "How'd you get here and how long have you been here?"

He didn't answer for a moment but he began to talk, "All I remember is being shot and I'm not sure how long I've been here. . . I just woke up today. . What about you?"

I nodded. "I was in a car crash, not my fault, though. So don't go around saying women are bad drivers!" I laughed. "I'm not quite sure how I long I've been here either and I just woke up today too. ."

He laughed a little but he began to cough. "Sorry. . My throat is still killing me. But at least we found each other and we aren't alone."

"Yeah, that would suck to be all alone in this hell hole. ."

An elevator began to come into view. "Hallelujah," I excitedly said as I pushed the elevator button down, but nothing happened. "God damn it!" I yelled as I kicked at it. "Calm down Jade, there's a door to the stairs," Rick said reassuringly as he pointed towards the door. When I opened the door it was pitch black, Rick pulled out a match and began to light it. "Hey . . Where'd you pull that thing out of?" I laughed. "Don't worry about it," He said, laughing. We began to go down the stairs, Rick was having a hard time so I put his arm around my shoulder and put my arm around his waist to help him steady himself down the stairs.

When we opened the door to the outside the light blinded us. We stood there for a moment till our eyes got adjusted. As we walked down the stairs I began to smell that I was smelling earlier, but it was intensified. So intensified that I could vomit right now. We saw tons of dead bodies lying on the ground as we were walking past them, as we were passing them I started to gag, but kept it down. We began up a hill towards a military helicopter, when we got up there there was vehicles, tents, but still not people. I moved Rick's arm away from me, "If you can, could you look over there for some people or some idea on what in the hell is going on?" He nodded and started to go in the opposite direction.

I looked through tents and found nothing but pillows and sleeping bags. I walked towards a black SUV and started to pull at the door handle. Locked. "Why do I have such crappy luck?" I sighed loudly. I turned around to see Rick nowhere in sight, "Great. . Now where the hell is he?" I groaned. I heard a quiet scream from the distance, I turned my head towards the sound to see Rick on the ground. I hurried towards him, "What happened?" I asked as I helped him to his feet. His face looked horrified, he pointed in a direction and my eyes followed to where he was staring at, "What the fuck?!" I said while stepping backwards, making myself fall on my butt. "Jade," Rick said, worriedly, "I need to go find my family." I nodded and got back on my feet, "I'll help you look for your family if you help me find my little sister Kira."

He nodded in response and began to sit on a bike, "You've got a deal."

"Are you sure you want to take a bike? We might be able to take one of the SUV's. . . If we break into it and hot wire it. ."

He shook his head, "It's fine, there's another bike over there you can go get it and we'll start looking at your house."

I walked over to the bike, trying to avoid eye contact with that thing that was on the ground. I hopped on the bike and we began to pedal our way to my place. When we arrived it was completely silent, Kira was usually playing outside or making some sort of noise. I rushed into the house and began to shout, "Kira! Kira! It's Jade!" No response. I checked all the places that Kira could fit and nothing. As I was in the kitchen I saw a picture of Kira on the fridge. I took it off of the fridge and looked at it closely, she had the best smile ever and could light up the room with it. It rubbed the picture with my thumb for a moment while I stared at it and put it in one of my gowns pockets.

There was only one last place to check, her bedroom. I ran into her room, nothing. Tears began to fill my eyes as I looked around the room, something caught my eye. A charm bracelet on top of her dresser. I picked it up and put it in one of the other gowns pockets, it'll keep me more determined to find her. Rick was waiting for me in the living room. I shook my head, "She's not here. . We should go and take a look at your house for your family then we'll go on from there." Rick nodded, we exited the house. As I got on my bike I looked at the house for a moment and took it all in, all the memories and good times we had had together. I let out a shaky sigh and we rode towards Rick's house.

When we got to Rick's out he instantly got off his bike and ran into his house yelling, "Lori! Carl!" I hopped off my bike and followed him into the house, we searched every room while we both called their names, but they weren't there. Rick sank to the ground on his knees and began to weep, "Lori! Carl. . ! Is this real . . . ?" Am I here. . .?" He began to hit his head aggressively. "Hey, hey! Woah!" I said as I grabbed his arm. "I want to wake up!" He yelled as a tear fell down his cheek. I kneeled down next to him and hugged him for a few minutes. I rubbed him back and helped him up to his feet. As we left the house we sat on the concrete steps in front of his house in silence.

Rick and I saw someone standing in the middle of the street, Rick started to motion the towards us. All of a sudden I hear a loud whack by my ear, "What the fuck?!" I yelled as I jumped up to see that Rick had been hit in the head with a shovel. "Daddy! Daddy!" The little boy with the shovel yelled. "Carl. . . Carl, I've found you. ." Rick whispered. I was shocked and confused. First of all is this kid Ricks son? If so why in the hell did he him in the head with a fucking shovel?! "Daddy I got the sum bitch! Imma smack him dead!" I stormed towards the boy, grabbed his shovel and threw it on the ground. "What the hell is wrong with you!" I screamed.

A gunshot startled me, I looked back to see there was a man coming towards us with a gun and he did not look happy at all. The man looked at the boy, me and then at Rick. "Did he something? I thought I heard him say something." The man said, acting like I was invisible. "He called me Carl. ." The kid said as he picked up his shovel. "Now son. . You know they don't talk. Hey, mista. What's that bandage for?"

Rick layed there, "W. . .what?" The man pulled a gun on him, "What. Kind. Of Wound." I grabbed the guy's arm, "Hey! What the hell are you guys doing?! Are you two nuts or something!? We were just minding our own business and you hit him on the head with a shovel and try to kill him!" The man pushed me off and kept his gun pointed at Rick, "Answer me! What's your wound?!" He cocked his gun, "Or I will kill you." I got in between them, "No you're not! He didn't even do anything, you psychopath! It's a gun wound for pete's sake!" I looked down to see that Rick had passed out. The man sighed and gave me a glare, "Help me with him, we will see if he's infected or not back at my place, you get his feet and I'll get the other end." I grabbed Rick's feet and we began to carry him, "Infected. . ?" I wondered as we carried Rick back to this man's house.


	2. Chapter 2

As we were walking down the street towards the man's house it was deadly quiet, it felt so awkward. "So. . uh. . who are you two anyways. . ?" The man stopped for a second, shook his head and continued to walk down the street. I rolled my eyes, cursed under my breath and readjusted Rick's foot weight on my hands because they started to cramp. The man whistled, the boy stopped in his tracks, he knew what the man meant. He looked around, saw what he was looking for and went up to a person that looked like one of those things that was outside the hospital and stabbed it in the head and came back to us. I stopped dead in my tracks. "What the hell is going on?" I asked loudly, readjusting Rick's feet again. The man hushed me and tugged Rick's body, making me follow his lead.

When we got to the front of the house, more of those things started to come towards us. "Get the door, Duane!" The man quietly yelled as we climbed up the stairs to the porch and into the house. Duane shut the door behind us quietly and locked the door. The man led me into a small bedroom and we set Rick down on the bed. The man began to take out some rope and tie Rick's hands and feet to the poles of the bed. "What do you think you're doing?" I asked, glaring at him.

He sighed and continued to tie up Rick, "He might be a threat," he said calmly.

"A threat? How? He's passed out."

"Don't be stupid! He could be bit with that wound."

"I already told you he was shot!"

He got up close to my face, "How do I know you're lying, huh? He could've lied to you and you would never know." I could feel his hot breath on my face and just nodded.

I pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down and watch him as he finished tying Rick up. "Bit. . . What did he mean by that? Like rabies?" I thought to myself, I had no idea what he meant, but whatever, I'd probably find out sooner or later and it would probably be better to know what he was talking about when Rick wakes up. I sighed and asked, "What's your name? Since we might be here for a while. I'm Jade Waldgrave."

"I'm Morgan Jones and that's my son, Duane," He pointed out the bedroom door to the boy who was staring out the boarded up window.

When Morgan got done tying up Rick he started looking at me, "Do you want some different clothes?" I was confused for a second then I remembered that I was still in my hospital gown, "Sure, thanks." He went out the bedroom door," Follow me." I got up from the chair, looked at Rick for a moment and left the room. I followed him up the stairs, he took me into a room and opened a big closet filled with different kinds of clothes. "Pick whatever you want," he said as he left the room. I rubbed my hands together and smiled evilly, I would finally get out of this ugly hospital gown. I began to rummage through the clothes in the closet.

"You're back!" A voice in the other room exclaimed. Morgan and the other person began to talk, I couldn't help but listen in silence even though it was wrong. After a few moments of listening to them talking the voice sounded familiar, I dropped the piece of clothing I was holding and rushed out of the room and towards the voices. When I ran into the room we locked eyes for a moment, I ran towards her and gave her the biggest hug and tears began running down my face, "Kira. . ! I've found you!" She buried her face into my neck and began to cry. I pulled her back and began to look at her face, I rubbed her face with my thumbs and put my forehead on hers. "W-why isn't Trevor with you. . ?" She sniffled and began to talk, "He left me to get eaten by the monsters! . . Morgan found me and took me here." I hugged her again tightly, "If I ever see him again he's a dead man. ." I mumbled.

I stood up and took Kira by the hand, I noticed that Morgan was still in the room. I felt embarrassed for the scene I just made. "I-I'm sorry for making a scene. ." He shook his head and gave me a smile, "I would've reacted the same way." I gave him a smile and nodded. I took Kira back to the other room, she sat on the bed while I kept looking for an outfit that I could wear. After a while I found some clothes, I went to go find Morgan. "Stay here, Kira," I said as I left the room. "Okay," she sounded disappointed that I didn't want her to come with me.

I walked down the stairs and found Morgan putting blankets over the windows. "Could you get the other windows, Jade?" I nodded and grabbed a few blankets, "Sure." I stood up on a stool and began to put the blankets over the windows, when I looked between the boards of the window I saw those things everywhere, I decided not to think about it right now; there were other things I had to think about right now like Rick, Kira, and how I could kill Trevor the next time I saw him. It would be better anyways to ask the questions to Morgan when Rick wakes up so he wouldn't have to bother explaining it twice. When I finished putting up the blankets I went back to Morgan in the kitchen. "Hey Morgan, could I use your shower?" I asked as I itched at my dirty scalp. Morgan shook head, "I don't think that's a good idea. . . I would only use it as a last resort, the gas lines have been down for about a month and the water is bitterly cold." I sighed and went up the stairs to get changed in the bathroom.

I closed the door behind me and began to take off my gown. I stopped for a moment and took out the picture of Kira and her charm bracelet. I set them on the counter, let the gown fall at my feet and kicked them across the room. "Adios, ugly gown." I slipped on some light blue skinny jeans, a black tank top, a large, brown cardigan and a pair of plain socks and some converse. I opened a cupboard and pulled out a brush and brushed out my hair, it took forever to get everything decent and for it not to look a rats nest. I looked in the mirror, I looked normal except for the stitched on my forehead. Oh well, they make me look pretty bad ass, not gonna lie. I grabbed the picture, folded it neatly and put it in the pocket of my cardigan. I then picked up the charm bracelet and put it in my pants pocket.

I walked out of the bathroom and looked in the room Kira and I was, no sign of Kira. I rolled my eyes and headed down the stairs. I went in the bedroom Rick was in to check in on him and saw Kira sitting in the chair and staring at him. She looked up at me and asked, "Who is this guy?" I picked her up from the chair, sat on the chair and sat her on my lap, "That is Rick." I rested my chin on her shoulder.

"Why is he tied up?"

I shrugged, "Morgan wants him to be tied up, he says he could be a threat. . and that he's bitten." I could feel Kira tense up.

"I-is he bit?"

I shook my head, "I don't think so." I paused and reached into my pants pocket to grab the charm bracelet. "You missing something?" I asked as I dangled it in front of her face.

She squealed quietly and grabbed the charm bracelet from my hands, "How did you get it?!"

I smiled and helped her put it on her wrist, "I went home looking for you and when I got into your room I found it and I figured you might like it when I found you."

She hugged me tightly, "Thank you! You know how much I love this charm bracelet."

I tousled her hair, "You better love it! I got it for you for your birthday!"

She smiled widely, "I do! I love it so much!"

"I'm so jealous!"

"We can share it!"

I hugged her tightly, "Oh thank you, Princess Kira."

Kira smiled and jumped out of my lap, "I'm gonna go get a comic book from Duane, I'll be right back!"

I smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead, "Okay, Monkey."

After a few moments, Kira entered the room and plopped back down on my lap with some comic books. Kira and I had been reading comics for a while, then Morgan came in with a bowl of water, a rage and some bandages, "I'm just going to redress his wound so it doesn't get infected." I got up, placed Kira on the chair and went over to Morgan. "Do you need any help?" I asked as I put my hands on my hips. He nodded and handed me the bandages, "Hold these." I grabbed them and watched as he peeled the bandages off of Rick's skin and began to wash the wound with the rag. I handed him the bandages, took the dirty ones and threw them into a trashcan in the corner of the room. "That should do, for now," Morgan said, wiping his hands clean.

I went over back to Kira and sat on the chair with her on my lap and we continued to read the comics. A few minutes later Rick began to wake up. I looked up from the comic book we were reading, Morgan looked down at him while cleaning the rag he was using, "We got that bandages changed now. . It was pretty bad." He looked at Rick, "What was it? The wound." Rick looked confused for a moment but then answered, "Gunshot."

"Gunshot? What else? Anything?"

"A gunshot ain't enough?"

Morgan got closer to the bed and pointed at Rick, "Look, I ask and you answer, it's common courtesy, right?" He leaned in close to Rick, "Did. You. Get. Bit?"

Rick had a confused look on his face, "Bit?"

"Bit, chewed, maybe scratched, anything like that?"

"No, I got shot. Just shot. . far as I know."

Morgan reached out his hand towards Rick's face, Rick tried to move his face away from his hand. "Hey. . just let me," Morgan said as he began to touch Rick's forehead, "Feels cold enough. . . Fever would've killed ya by now."

Rick looked at Morgan, "I don't think I have one."

Morgan raised an eyebrow, "Be hard to miss." Morgan pulled out a knife and put it close to Rick's face, "Take a moment, look how sharp it is. If you try anything I will kill you with it and don't you think I won't."

I tensed up when he had said that, I wanted to do something but then decided it would be better not to. He seemed like a decent enough man, he saved Kira from. . . monsters? All I know is that he saved Kira and I'm so grateful he did that and even though his son hit Rick in the head with a shovel he brought him back here and redressed his wound. Morgan is probably just looking out for his family and probably wouldn't hurt us until we tried to hurt him or his son first. I watched as Morgan began to cut off the rope that Rick was tied to. "Come on out when you're able," he said as he walked out the bedroom door. He looked at me before he completely left and said, "Dinner will be ready soon if you're hungry." Kira jumped off my lap, "I wanna help make dinner!" She exclaimed quietly, rushing after them. I smiled, I had my Kira back and she was okay.

I looked down at Rick who was rubbing at his wrists, "You ready to eat?" He nodded and got up from bed, I offered my shoulder to him but he just shook his head. I wrapped a blanket around his body, "You must be cold, in your underwear and all." I laughed a little and he gave me a light smile and we left the bedroom so we go to the other room and eat. I went into the kitchen and sat down next to Kira, she couldn't stop smiling at me and I couldn't stop smiling at her. Rick began to look around the house, "This place. . Fred and Cindy Drakes." Morgan looked at Rick the doorway of the kitchen and shrugged, "Never met em."

Rick began to move around the living room, "I've been here, this is their place."

"It was empty when we got here."

Rick went towards the window and began to touch the blanket on top of it.

"Don't do that. . ! They'll see the light. There's more of them out there than usual. I never should've fired that gun today. . ." Morgan began to move food to the table, "Noise draws them, now they're all over the streets." He began to mumble to himself, "Stupid. . using a gun." He spoke up again, "But it happened so fast, I didn't think."

Rick entered the kitchen, "You shot that man today."

"Man?"

"Weren't no man," Duane chimed in.

"The hell was that out your mouth just now?" Morgan asked, disgusted in his son's grammar.

"It wasn't a man." Duane corrected himself.

Rick came closer to Morgan, "You shot him in the street out front, A MAN."

"You need glasses, that was a walker. ." He waved his hand toward the table, "Common, sit down before you fall down."

Rick sighed as he sat down at the table. Just as Rick started to eat Duane interrupted him, "Daddy," he said, "Blessin'." Rick and I looked at Morgan and Duane join hands so I grabbed Kira's and Rick's. "Lord we thank thee for this food," Morgan began, "Thy blessing. We ask you to watch over us in these crazy days. . Amen." We all began to eat our food, which was beans. Morgan started to look at us, "Hey, do you two even know what's goin' on?" I shooked my head and looked at Rick, and he looked right back at me. "We both only woke up today," he explained, "at the hospital. . . We went to Jade's house and then to my house, looking for our families and that's all I know."

I watched as Morgan and Duane gave glances to each other while I ate some of my beans. "You know about the dead people, right?" Morgan asked, breaking the silence. I swallowed down my beans and began to talk, "Yeah, we saw tons of them out on the loading docks." Morgan shook his head, "No, not those ones. They put those ones down I mean the ones they didn't." Morgan looked at both of our confused faces and kept talking, ". . Their walkers. Like the one I shot today. 'Cause he would've ripped into either one of you, tried to eat you. . or try to take the flesh at least." He sighed, "Well if I guess this is the first time you've heard this then, I know how it must sound." Rick pointed towards the boarded up windows with his spoon, "They're out there now? In the street?" "Yea. . They get more active after dark sometimes, maybe it's the cool air, or hell maybe it's me firing off that gun today. . . We'll be fine as long as we stay quiet. Probably wonder off till morning. There's one thing I do know. . Don't get bit. I saw your bandage, and that's why we were frightened of. Bites kill ya, the fever burns ya out. But then after a while . . . You come back." He looked at Rick and then at me, I got chills down my back. Duane looked up from his plate and at us, "Seen it happen. ." It was all silent again and we started to finish our beans.

After we got done eating our beans, we piled our dishes on the counter and made our way into the living room. Morgan threw a pillow on the couch where Rick was sitting and two in front of the couch were Kira and I were and then he got settled in his spot with Duane. We sat in silence for a moment. "Carl," Morgan said, breaking the silence, "He your son? You. . You said his name today."

Rick nodded, "He's a little younger than your boy."

"And he's with his mother?" Morgan asked with concern.

"I hope so. . ."

"Dad. . ?" Duane mumbled. He was almost asleep. "Did you ask him?

Morgan laughed quietly and said, "Your gun shot, we got a little bet goin'. My boy says you were a bank robber."

Rick smiled and shook his head, "Yeah, that's me. Deadly as Dillinger. Kapow!" He chuckled, "Sheriff's Deputy."

Morgan nodded, "Ah-hah, I see."

All of a sudden a car's alarm went off, everybody jumped, startled by the sudden noise. I put Kira close to me and I rubbed her back soothingly and began to whisper in her ear, "It's okay. . ." Morgan also began to comfort Duane, "Hey, it's okay, daddy's here. . One of them must've bumped on the cars." Rick got up from the couch, "You sure?" Morgan nodded, "It's happened once before. Went off a few minutes." Morgan and I got up from out spots too. "Get the light, Duane," Morgan whispered. Duane got one of the lights and Kira got the other one. Morgan moved one of the blankets slightly so Rick and I could peer through in between the boards. "It's the blue one, down the street," Morgan said, giving us more room to look. "Same one as last time, I think we're okay. ." Rick looked at Morgan with concern, "The noise, won't that bring more of them?" Morgan shook his head, "Nothing we can do about it now. Just gotta wait em out till mornin'."

Kira and Duane began to look out the window but through another hole. Duane gasped, "She's here. . . !" "Don't look! Get away from the window," Morgan demanded, but Duane kept looking. "I said go!" He whispered. Duane ran to where they were sleeping and began to weep into a pillow. "Quite, common, quiet. Shh. . shh. . ." I moved away from the window and went towards the door to look out the peephole, I saw a woman who was a walker, before she turned I bet she was beautiful. I hear Morgan whisper to Duane, "It's okay. . . cry into the pillow. . shh." The walker began to toy with the door handle. Freaked out I moved away from the door and sat next to Kira in front of the couch. "She, uh. . died on the bed in the other room there," Morgan said. "I didn't know about it yet. That fever, man. I should've put her down, I know I should've. I just didn't have it in me. . ."

You could still hear the rattling of the door handle. Kira and I snuggled with each other and after a few minutes, everything was all silent again. I put my forehead against Kira and closed my eyes. Kira was lying next to me and I couldn't be happier. But with what was going on outside made me feel uneasy. What was going to become of us?


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up to Morgan shaking me vigorously, "I'm up! I'm up!" I groaned. I slowly sat up and rubbed my eyes. I saw that Kira was already up, she smiled at me when she noticed me. I stood up from the ground and went into the kitchen. I picked her up and gave her a big kiss on the cheek, "Hey Mini-Me." She giggled as I put her down. I heard Rick coming down the stairs and saw him enter the kitchen wearing clothes. "Oh no, now I can't see your battle wound, it was quite attractive," I teased. Rick just smiled and shook his head at me. He stood by Kira and smiled down at him, "Who is this?" I grabbed some leftover beans from the table, "I never did properly introduce you two yesterday, huh? Well, this is Kira. The one I told you about."

"Ah, so this is _**the**_ Kira. Your sister was worried sick about you."

I handed Rick some beans and began to eat some, "We'll start looking for your family today, I promise. . ."

Rick just looked down at his beans for a moment and began to eat.

Morgan entered the kitchen, "When ya'll are done eating meet me in the living room." We nodded and ate our food quickly. After we were all done eating we entered the living room, Morgan gave us all weapons and flashlights, he even gave Rick and I backpacks to put supplies in. "You're going to be needing these. Come, follow me. I'll show you what to do,"We all grabbed our things and headed out the door and onto the porch. "Are you sure they're dead?" I asked Morgan as we stood on the porch for a moment, "I have to ask just one more time. . ." Morgan nodded and headed down the stairs, "They're dead. Except for something in their brain, that's why it's gotta be the head."

The rest of us followed him down the stairs and into the driveway. A walker got up from a white fence and headed towards us. Rick went right to it and began to smash it's head open. When he finished he kneeled down to the ground and grabbed at his side. I went over to him and knelt on the ground, "Rick, are you alright?" "I need a moment. . ." Rick said in a shaky voice. "Jade," Kira whispered, "I've killed walkers before, all by myself!" I rubbed her on the head, "That's good, Monkey." I went up to a stray walker to test out my strength against them, I positioned the bat and myself, then WHAM. Straight at the head, but it kept coming, it took several times for me to take it down with just a bat. "Damn. . ." I muttered.

He slowly got up to his feet, "I know where to find some weapons." He paused for a moment and caught his breath, "They're alive, my wife and son. . . At least they were when they left. "He started to walk out of the driveway and out in the streets, Kira took my hand we followed him.

"How can you know?" Morgan asked, walking beside Rick.

"When I got there I found empty drawers in the bedrooms, they packed some clothes, not a lot but enough to travel."

Morgan raised his eyebrows, "You know anyone could've broken in and stolen clothes, right?"

"Our photo albums, family pictures, all gone. Do you think a thief took those?" Rick asked as he eyed Morgan.

"Photo albums. . ." Morgan started to laugh, "My wife. . same thang. There I am packing survival gear and there she is grabbing photoalb-" He couldn't finish his sentence, you could tell her was about to burst into tears.

Duane got in between Rick and me, "They're in Atlanta, I bet."

"That's right," Morgan said.

"Why there?" Rick and I asked.

"Refugee center," Morgan began, "HUGE one they said before the broadcast stopped. Military protection, food, shelter. They told people to go there. . . Said it'd be safest."

"And they get a disease place," Duane chimed in.

"Center for disease control. Said they were working out how to solve this thang. . ."

Rick walked up his driveway, he turned to us, "Stay here I'll be a minute." We kept watch while he went inside, moments later he came out with a duffel bag and a set of keys. "We're going to the station for the weapons." I looked around, "Don't you have a vehicle we could take to get there?" He nodded, "It is quite far away. I do have my police car in the garage." Rick walked to the garage door and pulled it up. Rick got to the car and opened the door, "Everyone get in." We nodded, Morgan sat in the passenger seat in the front and Duane, Kira and I occupied the back.

I held Kira's hand in mine, I rubbed her hand with my thumb and looked out the window while Rick drove. Before I knew it Rick was pulling into the station. I opened the car door and helped Kira out. We walked up to the station's door and Rick opened it. When Rick opened the door it was pitch black, except the lighting coming through the blinds. Rick pulled up the blinds, making the room much brighter. Rick lead us to a showering room and turned on a shower. "Morgan told me that the gas lines have been down for maybe I month," I informed Rick as I leaned against the wall. Rick reached out his hand towards the water and began to touch it, "Station's got its own propane system. Pilots still on." Rick grabbed Morgan and Duane by the shoulder and headed towards the door. "Ladies first," he said as they all left.

Kira and I began to strip. I kicked off my converse, started slipping off all of my clothing, folded it and set it on the bench. I walked into the shower and Kira went in the one next to mine. I turned on the water and enjoyed how hot and steamy it was. I squeezed some shampoo into my hand and began rubbing it into my scalp, when I was done I handed it to Kira. "This feels so good. . .I don't even know how long it's been since I showered. . !" Kira stared at the shampoo bottle for a moment, "You were in a coma for so long, Jade. . . When everything happened he wouldn't let me see you! Then he just left me. . . I was surrounded by monsters, Jade!"

I rinsed my hair from the shampoo and looked at Kira, "I know, Kira. . ." I put my hand on her cheek. "You're a brave girl, and you had Morgan to protect you when no one else did. But I'm here now and I am going to protect you."

Kira let out a shaky sigh and got out of her shower. She went into mine, hugged me and began to cry. "I thought you were dead. . ! I thought I was going to never see you again . . ."

I hugged Kira tightly, "I thought I was never going to see you again either. I had no idea what had happened to you or where you were but I was determined to find you. . . no matter what. But now look, here we are. We're together now and nothing is going to change that." I smiled at her and gave her a big kiss on the forehead, "Now finish showering, Mini Me."

She smiled at me and went back into her shower. I put conditioner in my hair, I found a stray razor and decided to use it even though it sounds gross it looked pretty clean and trust me, I needed to shave. After I rinsed off my hair from the conditioner and got done shaving I stopped the water and began to put on my clothes. I waited for Kira to finish and then me and her went into the other room where the others were at, "You can shower now, we didn't waste much of the hot water. The other rushed in there, I smiled as I heard them singing and saying how much the hot water felt good. I began looking around the room for anything that could be of any use to us, all I found were some office supplies. I guess Rick knew were all the big stuff was anyways. I sat down on a chair and Kira sat down on my lap and we waited for them to come out.

"Atlanta seems like a good deal," I heard Rick say as they all came out of the showering room. Kira jumped out of my lap and I got out of the chair. "Safer anyways. People," Rick began to lead us to another room. "That's where we were headed," Morgan said, "things got crazy. . Man, you won't believe the panic. Streets weren't fit to be on. And when my wife. . . couldn't travel we had to find a place to stay low. And then after she died. . We just stayed hunkered down. I guess we just froze in place." Rick opened a door and turned on his flashlight, "You plan to move on?" He asked. Morgan exhaled slowly, "Haven't worked up to it yet. . ." Rick pulled out his keys and unlocked a cage holding weapons. " A lot of it's gone missing." He turned on a light, grabbed a gun and began to examine it.

"Daddy," Duane said, looking at Rick holding the weapon, "Can I shoot? I'm old enough." Kira jump up and down, "Oh! I want to know how to shoot too!" I patted her on the head, "Calm down, you little monkey. I'll teach you how to shoot, okay?" She nodded, "I know how to shoot. . . sort of but I don't know how to aim well!" I laughed and patted her head again. "Hell yes you're gonna learn," Morgan said. "But we gotta do it carefully, teach you to respect the weapon." "That's right, it's not a toy. You pull the trigger, you mean it. Always remember that, you guys," Rick said as he handed me a gun. "Hey, Rick. ." I looked at him, "I know my way around a gun, but. . . I'm kinda rusty, do you have a shooting range? I'll take Kira and show her all the basics while you guys do your thing. I'll meet you when we're done." He nodded, "Just go down that way and make a right and it'll be there." I grabbed Kira's hand, the two guns and headed down the hall to the shooting range.

I opened the door to the shooting range and opened the blinds to the windows. I found a few pairs of noise canceling headsets and put one on. "Put this on, Kira," I said while tossing them to her. I walked over to where I was supposed to go, I noticed that there was still some pictures up to shoot at. I lifted up my gun, breathed in and out slowly as I pulled the trigger, I was a bit off but after a few tries I was perfect and got each place exact. "Damn, I didn't know I was this good," I laughed.

I motioned Kira to come here and she did. I moved one side of the headset off of her head so she could hear me, "Now listen, this is not a toy, just like Rick said. Now, only put your finger on the trigger if you're planning to shoot. Aim for the head if it's a walker. If it's a person we might not want to hurt them too bad, so try aiming somewhere else if they're threatening you." I showed her how to turn the safety on and off. "You got it?" She nodded, put the headset back into place and aimed for the picture. It took her a while but she was a pro in no time. "Good job! Just what I expected of you, you really are a Mini-Me!" I messed up her hair and she giggled. I grabbed the guns, put the safety on and put them in my pants back pockets. Kira opened the door and we left the shooting range.

We went back to the room where they were. "Where the hell is he?" I asked while looking around the empty room. "They might've gone outside, Jade," Kira said. I smiled at her, "You're so smart, Monkey." I grabbed her hand, we headed down the hall and up the stairs leading outside. When we got up the stairs Rick was putting the other guns in the back of the car. "I was wondering when you'd come up here," He said, smirking. I smirked back, "You might want to watch who you mouth off to, I'm a pro shooter." I made a gun out of my hand and pointed it at Rick. He held his hands up, "Oh my! I'm sorry, please don't shoot!"

"I'm afraid it's too late, you could beg for your life. . . But it won't help," I said in a western accent.

It looked like he was about to get on his knees to beg but then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his hand in a form of a gun, "I don't think I'll be the one begging for my life."

I tipped my imaginary hat, "So be it." I pulled my thumb trigger, "Pew. Pew. Pew."

Rick aimed his hand gun at me, "Pew. Pew. Pew."

Kira, Rick and I bursted out with laughter. "Oh my God. . ." I mumbled, trying to stop laughing. After we calmed down I looked around and saw Morgan and Duane in another car, "Are they coming with us?"

Rick shook his head, "He told me a few more day so that they could get used to shooting guns and then they'll meet us. I gave them a walkie talkie so we can keep in touch. I'll try reaching them every few minutes at dawn for a while."

Kira rushed to their car, "Hey! Wait up, Kira!" I whispered. Kira opened the backseat door and gave Duane a hug, "I'm going to miss you, Duane. . !" Duane gave her a big hug back, "We'll see each other again, I promise. Here, take another comic book." Duane pulled out a comic book from his backpack and gave it to Kira. She smiled at him, "Thank you!" She gave him one last hug before hopping out the backseat and going into the car with Rick. I reached my hand in the backseat, "Thank you, Duane." I rubbed his head and closed the door. I made my way over to Morgan's window, "I can't thank you enough for saving Kira and taking care of her. . ." Morgan smiled at me, "It wasn't a problem at all. . . I would just hope that someone would do that for Duane if I wasn't around for him." Mogan and I said our goodbyes and I went in the car with Rick and Kira. "Where are we going? Atlanta?" I asked as I put my seatbelt on. He nodded and started up the car.

I looked out the window as watched as the city got smaller and smaller. When we got into the country Rick pulled out his radio and started to talk into it, "Broadcasting on the emergency channel. We'll be approaching Atlanta on highway 85. Anyone reads, please respond. . . Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear my voice? Anybody out there? Anyone hear me please respond. Hello? Can you hear my voice?" He kept trying over and over again trying to reach somebody, but got nothing. "Do you think anybody will answer?" I asked as I put my feet up on the dash. He shrugged, "I don't know. . . but we have to try."

A few miles out, I felt the car began to start slowing down. I looked at Rick, "We're outta gas. . . aren't we?" He nodded. I took my seatbelt off in frustration and got out of the car. Rick got out as well, "I'll go look for some gas." I shook my head, "No, we're not going to be separated, okay? What if something happens while you're gone?" I walked to the back door, opened it and began to wake Kira up. When she was up I grabbed the bag of guns, "Common, Kira. We're going to go look for some gas." She rubbed her eyes and hopped out of the car. We shut the doors and started walking down the road to look for anything that might have gas.

We walked in silence for the most part, until we a house got into sight. "You think there's gas there?" I asked as I shaded my eyes from the sun. Rick shrugged, "Might be." Rick walked up the house's porch and began to call for people in the house and asking for gas. I put the bag down on a wooden table and went to a truck and checked if there were any keys, none. "Look! Horses!" Kira pulled at my shirt. I hit my head on the roof of the truck, "Ah! Damnit!" I rubbed my head and looked down at her, "What now, Kira?" She looked down at her feet, "I'm sorry. . ." I tousled her hair, "It's okay, Monkey. Now, what did you say?" She grabbed my hand and led me to a fence with horses. "Oh wow. . ."

I heard Rick come down from the porch. I turned my head to see that he was sitting on a bench, he was looking down at his feet. I walked over and sat next to him to check on him, "What happened? You okay?" He stayed silent for a moment, "The people inside. . . they killed themselves. ." I got a sickening feeling deep in my stomach, "Oh. ." We sat there for a moment. "Kira found some horses, " I said, breaking the silence, "We could ride them into the city." Rick nodded, got up from the bench, walked over to the barn to grab some rope and went towards the horses.

When Rick opened the gate to the horses, they got startled. "Easy, now, easy," Rick said as he approached them. "I'm not going to hurt you, nothing like that. . . More like a proposal. Atlanta is just down the road aways, safe there, food, shelter, people, more horses like you guys, I bet. How's that sound. . ?" He began tying one of the ropes around one of the horses, he threw me the other rope and I did the same. "Rick. . ! The horse whisperer," I laughed as we led the horses into the barn and put saddles on them. Rick laughed, "You always have something smart to say, don't you?" I helped Kira onto the saddle, "You bet your sweet ass I do." Kira covered her ears, "LaLaLaLa! I. DID. NOT. HEAR. THAT!" I laughed and climbed onto the horse, sitting behind Kira on the saddle, "You ever ride one before?" He sighed, went to get the duffel bag and got on his horse, "It's been a while. . ." He looked down at the horse while it was walking a bit, "Just go easy on me, okay?" Rick squeezed the horse with his feet lightly and the horse bolted. "Woah!" He yelled as they speed away. "Hold on, Kira," I said as I chuckled and squeezed the horse with my feet, making it go fast to catch up with Rick.

When we got closer to the city, the horses slowed down. On the other side of the highway there were a bunch of cars. "Jesus," I muttered. "Do you think the city is safe, Rick?" "We'll have to find out, there might be a spot where they're be located, a safe place where the walkers can't get to them." As we kept going into the city all of the streets were empty, besides stray vehicles, but no sign of people. We turned down a street, and went beside a bus, you could hear the walkers' moans, the horses freaked out. "Woah!" We all exclaimed, trying to calm the horses down. When they calmed down, Kira rubbed our horse's mane, "It's okay," she whispered, "It's only a few of them. ."

We stopped for a moment when we heard a helicopter in the distance. Rick, Kira and I began looking around. Rick dug his shoes into the sides of his horse to make him go faster, I wasn't expecting him to do that, but when I was about to do the same, he stopped. He was frozen for a second, he made his horse turn and he started to gallop back, walkers started to follow behind him. I turned my horse around but it was too late, they were coming from that side too. I got off the horse and grabbed Kira, "Common, Rick!" I yelled. "We gotta do something!" I saw Rick fall off his horse and my heart dropped. Kira kept pulling at my shirt, "Jade! What do we do?!" I started to looking around for a place for us to hide, I started to panic but then I saw a tank. I pushed Kira under the tank and we crawled under it, a second later Rick was with us. "Kira, there's an open hatch, crawl into it!" Kira pushed herself in there, Rick and I followed.

When I closed the bottom hatch I was breathing hard and my heart was beating fast, "Oh my God. . . That was a close one. ." Kira screamed a little and I turned to what she was screaming at, it was a walker. Was it dead dead? I slowly slid out my knife and put it in its skull to be sure that it was truly gone. I saw that it had a gun, so I pulled it out of its holster and held onto it. I looked at Rick, "What happened to your duffel bag. . ?" He shook his head in disappointment and sighed, "I. . I dropped the bag." "Oh. ." I moved to the top of the tank and peek my head through the top hatch, I saw the duffel bag. Walkers were going on top of the tank, so I closed the hatch. I sighed, "How will we get out of here. . ?"

We sat in silence for a few minutes thinking of a way we would get out of here, but our silence was interrupted when we started hearing static, "Hey you, dumbasses, " they paused, "Yeah, you, in the tank. Cozy in there?" Rick and I looked at each other, with our eyes wide. "Hey! Are you alive in there?!" Rick hurried to get to the radio, he hit his head on the way, but he got it, "Hello?! Hello!?"


	4. Chapter 4

The man on the radio sighed in relief, "There you are. . .You had me wondering."

"Where are you? Outside? Can you see us right now?"

"Yeah I can see you. You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news."

"There's good news. . .?" Rick's voice was full of doubt.

"No. . ." The man sighed.

"Listen, whoever you are. I don't mind telling you, I'm a little concerned in here."

"Oh man. . You should see from over here. . ! You'd be having a major freak out."

"You got any advice for us?"

"Yeah, I'd say make a run for it."

"That's it?! Make a run for it. . ?!"

"My plan isn't as dumb as it sounds, you got eyes on the outside here. There's one geek outside on top of the tank, but the others outside have joined the feeding frenzy when the horses went done. You with me so far?"

"So far."

"Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. If you guys move now while they're distracted you stand a chance. You got ammo?"

"In that duffel bag I dropped out there and gun, can I get to it?"

"Forget the bag, okay? It's not an option. What do you have on you?"

"Hang on." I gave Rick the gun I found off the walker and showed him the guns Kira and I used in the shooting range, and he also had a gun. "I got a burnside with one clip - 15 rounds."

"Make them count. Jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction. There's an alley up that street, 50 yards. Be there."

"Hey. . . What's your name?"

"Have you been listening?! You're running out of time!"

Rick handed me a shovel and I handed Kira my gun, knowing she didn't have enough strength to hit them head on with a shovel."Make your shots count, aim for the head, but only if you have to shoot. Kira nodded. I went up the hatch first, I saw the walker that the guy was talking about, I hit it in the head and it fell off the tank. I reached out and helped Kira out of the tank and we carefully jumped off of it, trying not to make too much noise. Rick got in front of us, he began shooting at walkers while we were running towards the alley-way. When we got there, Rick was about to shoot at him, "Wait! Don't shoot! Common!" We ran down the alley-way. "Faster!" The guy yelled at us. When we made it to a yellow ladder he started to climb up it, I pushed Kira up the ladder so Rick and I would get up there in time.

When we got to a little platform halfway up, we stopped to take a breather. "Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood. . . You the new sheriff? Come riding in to clean the town?"

Rick shook his head, "Wasn't my intention.

He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, whatever, yeehaw. . You're still a dumbass."

"Rick. . Thanks," He held out his hand to the man.

"Glenn. . And you're welcome," They shook hands.

I held out my hand as well, "I'm Jade." We shook hands. I motioned my hand towards Kira, "And this is Kira."

"Hey, Kira" He gave Kira a weak smile. He looked down the ladder to see some of the walkers were trying to climb up it. "Oh no. . ."

We all looked up to see how much farther the ladder was. "Bright side," Glenn said, "It'll be the fall that'll kill us. . . I'm a glass half-full kinda guy. I could feel Kira tense up next to me. "It's okay, I'll be right behind you," I whispered. Glenn was the first up the ladder, then Kira, myself and then Rick. When we got to the top of the ladder we had to go through an empty room, when we got to the door on the other side there was a board, it connected to the other roof. "You the one who barricaded the alley?" Rick asked as we all walked over the board and to the other side. "Somebody did," Glenn grunted as he and Rick lifted themselves over the half wall to get to the top of the other roof. I lifted Kira up and over it and then myself. "I guess when the city got overrun whoever did it was thinking, not many geeks get through," Glenn started to run. I grabbed Kira's hand and started running so we wouldn't get left behind.

Glenn opened a hatch that was on the floor of the roof, Rick held it open. "Back at the tank. . . Why did you help us?" Rick asked as Glenn took off his backpack and threw it down the hole. "Foolish naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek somebody might do the same for me. I guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you guys." Glenn started to go down the ladder, I went next, then Kira and lastly Rick. When we got to the bottom the ladder I helped Kira down and held her hand again. Glenn started running again so we did the same. Glenn shoved open a door and began doing down steps, we followed on his heels as he began to talk into a walkie-talkie. "I'm back! Got a few guests. . ! There's four geeks in the alley!"

When we got down the flight of stairs we saw some walkers. I jumped when I heard a door slam open suddenly, to people came out wearing baseball gear and began to beat in their skulls. "Let's go!" Glenn yelled as we passed them. I held Kira's hand tightly as we passed them and entered the room. As soon as the door closed and everybody was in all I hear is someone yelling, "You son of a bitch! I oughta kill you!" I turn around to see a gun being pointed at Rick, I push Kira behind me as she grabbed at my shirt. One of the people who was wearing the baseball gear said, "Just chill out, Andrea! Back off." They began to take off their gear.

"You're kidding. . . Right, Morales?! We're dead because of these stupid assholes. . ."

Morales stepped closer to Andrea, "Andrea. . ! I said back the hell up!"

". . ." She kept silent.

"Pull the trigger then!" He yelled.

Andrea put the gun down and began to get teary eyed, "We're dead. . . All of us. . .Because of you guys. . ."

I began to relax a little when Andrea put down her gun, but I was still uneasy about what was going to happen next. "I don't understand. . ." Rick mumbled as he looked around at all the people in Glenn's group. Glenn quickly introduced everybody that was in the room, "This is Morales, Andrea, Jacquie, and T-Dog. Everybody this is Rick, Jade, and Kira." We all nodded at each other. "Look," Morales said as he grabbed Rick's arm and led him somewhere, everyone followed, "We came into the city to scavenge supplies, you know the key to scavenging is? Surviving. You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out! Tip toeing! Not shootin' up the streets!" Jacqui began to talk, "Every geek within miles heard you poppin' off!" Andrea let out a shaky sigh, "You just ran the dinner bell. . ." We all looked out the door of the store and saw a hoard of walkers beating on the door. We all backed up a little and I kept Kira close to me.

Andrea looked at us with a concerned expression, "What the hell were you guys doing out there anyway?" "Trying to flag down the helicopter. . ." Rick answered. They all look at him with a weird look, "Helicopter? Man, that's crap! There ain't no helicopter out there," Morales said. "I saw it," Rick argued. "Maybe it was a hallucination," Jacqui said. I stepped in, "It wasn't we all saw it, even ask Kira. How could we have hallucinated the same thing. . . ?" They didn't say anything, but they were thinking about the possibilities. "Hey, T-Dog. Try that c.b. can you contact the others?"

"Others?" Rick and I asked curiously. "The refugee center?"

"Yeeah, the refugee center. They got biscuits waiting in the oven for us. . ." Jacqui said, sarcastically.

T-Dog sighed, "No signal. . . Maybe the roof."

All of sudden we heard a loud boom.

Andrea sighed and groaned, "Oh no. . . Was that Dixon. . ?"

Glenn's group began to run somewhere. "Let's go!" Someone shouted. I grabbed Kira's hand tightly and followed right behind them. They opened a door with a long flight of stairs. I sighed and mumbled, "When will the stairs end. . . ?" I tightened my grip on Kira, "Common, Kira. Let's try not to fall behind." You could tell she was tired from all the running and the stairs. As we kept going up the stairs you could hear more gunshots. Great, I guess that means more walkers. When we got up all the steps and pushed open the door Morales yelled, "Hey, Dixon! Are you crazy?!" All the Dixon guy did was laugh and shoot again. Andrea sighed, "Oh come on. . !" He was still laughing, "Heey! You oughta be more polite to a man with a gun, huh?" He jumped off the ledge of the room and started walking around everyone, "Only common sense."

T-Dog started walking towards Dixon, "Man, you wasting bullets we ain't even got! And you bringin' more of them down here on our ass, man just chill!"

"Hey! Bad enough I've got this taco bender on my ass all day," Dixon complained, "Now I'm gonna take orders from you? I don't think so. That'll be the day. . ."

T-Dog got up in Dixon's face, "That'll be that day?! You got something you wanna tell me!?"

"Hey, T-Dog. Man, just leave it. . ." Morales said.

"No!"

"Common, man. It ain't worth it. Now Merle just relax. . . Okay? We've got enough trouble."

Rick and I looked at Glenn, but all he did was shake his head. I grabbed Kira's hand and took her to a spot away from the others, we could still hear them arguing. "Stay here, Kira. I don't want you in this right now. Just in case something goes wrong. . . You'll be safe. That man. . . That man doesn't seem stable and I don't want you to get hurt." Kira nodded her head as she sat down on the ground. I bent over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head, as soon as I turned around I saw Rick being punched in the face by Merle. "Rick! No!" I ran towards him and helped him up, "Are you okay?" I looked at him with a worried expression and looked to see if there was any major damage. He stood in shock for a minute, I turned to see what was going on now. They were screaming for Merle to stop, he was on T-Dog. I rushed over to Merle and tried to pull him off of T-Dog but he elbowed me in the stomach with what seemed like with all of his strength.

I grabbed my stomach and leaned against the ledge. I gasped for air, I could hardly breathe and it felt like I had to puke. I heard Kira running over to me calling my name. I squeezed my eyes for a second and when I opened them I saw Kira in front of me and with tears in her eyes. She kept pulling at my shirt, I rubbed her head gently, "It's okay, Kira. ." I looked around to see what was going on now, Rick was right beside me and the others were around T-Dog. Rick looked at me with concern but I gave him a little smile and nodded to show him everything was alright, even though my stomach was sore. Merle began to talk and all eyes were on him, "Let's talk about who's in charge! I wrote me! Anybody else?! Democracy time, ya'll. Show of hand. All in favor? Common, let's see em!" Glenn, Andrea, and Jacqui raised their hands except for T-Dog, who was in too much pain at the moment. "Now. . That means I'm the boss, right? Now. . . Anybody else. . .? Hmm? Anybody?" Rick walked his way towards Merle, "Yeah. Me." Merle turned around and Rick hit him in the face with the butt of his gun and he fell to the ground. He grabbed one of Merle's hands and handcuffed it to a pipe. "Who are you!?" Merle yelled. "Officer Friendly. . ." Rick replied.

I turned to Kira, "Go back to where you were, okay?" She shook her head and buried her face into my stomach, I flinched at the pain. "I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?!" Kira's eyes were filled with tears again. "It's fine, Monkey. I'm fine, don't worry. Just. . . please go back over there. I don't want you to get hurt." She went back over there reluctantly, and I went over by the others. I saw Rick with a gun pointed to Merle's head, "You oughta be polite to a man with a gun. . . Only common sense."

"You wouldn't. . . You're a cop."

"All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son. . Anybody gets in the way of that is gonna lose. . I'll give you a moment to think about that." I got butterflies in my stomach when he said that, even though I wasn't anything special to Rick it made me wonder if I would ever meet someone who would ever feel that way about me. Rick began to search Merle and found some cocaine. "You still got some on your nose," he said as he flicked it.

"What're you gonna do? Arrest me?" Merle began to laugh.

Rick got up and threw it over the roof.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAN?! THAT'S MY STUFF! HEY! IF I GET LOOSE YOU BETTER PRAY!" He tried pulling free from the pipe. "YOU HEAR ME?! YOU PIG!"

Rick walked to one side of the roof and leaned on the ledge, "Yeah. . . Your voice carries." Morales went over to Rick side and began talking to him.


	5. Chapter 5

I walked over to T-Dogs side to check on him, he was trying the c.b. again. "How's the signal?" We asked. "Like Dixon's brain. . weak." I tried to keep from laughing but a snort of laughter escaped my mouth. Andrea glared at me, probably for acting so childish. "Keep trying," Rick sighed.

Andrea sighed as well, "Why? There's nothing they can do. Not a damn thing. . ."

"We've got some people out of the city," Morales said," There's no refugee center. . . That's a pipe dream."

"That means she was right," Rick sighed, "We're on our own. . . Up to us to find our way out."

"Good luck with that. . ." Merle said, sarcastically. "These streets ain't safe in this part of town from what I hear." He looked at Andrea with a smirk, "Ain't that right, sugar tits?"

My mouth dropped a little when I heard him say that and I rolled my eyes.

He then looked at me, "Hey, honeybun, let's say you get me outta these cuffs, we go off somewhere. . bump some uglies. . We're gonna die anyways."

I pretended to get excited, "Oh really?! Rick, where are those keys!" I looked at Merle and winked. I nudged at Rick, "You got a set of keys you don't need?" He thought for a moment, nodded and handed them to me. I walked over to Merle and dangled them in front of his face and bit my bottom lip, you could tell he was getting excited. "You want out?" He nodded. I turned around and threw the keys off the roof.

"YOU STUPID BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU!" He roared.

I grabbed at my sides and laughed so hard tears came into my eyes, "Fuck off, ya prick! You're so pathetic!" I had to take a breather but I kept laughing, "Those weren't really the keys! I can't believe you fell for that!" I slapped my knee and kept laughing. The others seemed to enjoy the torture I inflicted on Merle and laughed as well.

"These streets aren't safe," Rick said as soon as everything got quiet.

"Now that is an understatement," Morales said.

"What about under the streets? The sewers?" Rick questioned.

"Oh man. . ! Hey, Glenn. Check the alley, can you see any manhole covers?"

Glenn ran to the other side of the roof, looked for a moment and ran back while shaking his head," No. . . must be out in the streets where all the geeks are."

"Maybe not," Jacqui informed. "An old building this like, built in the twenties, big structures often had drainage tunnels into the sewers in case of flooding. Down in the sub-basements."

"How do you know that. . .?" I asked as I signaled Kira back over to me.

"It's my job! Was. . . I worked in the city's owning office."

Rick started walking towards the door, "Let's go." He paused at the door, "T-Dog, keep an eye on Dixon, okay?" T-Dog nodded as we headed down the stairs.

When we got to the bottom of the steps I could hear the Walker's growls. I felt Kira squeeze my hand, even though she had killed them she was still uneasy about them. Rick began looking around, "Where's the sub-basement?" Glenn got in front of Rick and began to lead us into another room, "Follow me." When Kira and I got into the room we saw everybody shining their flashlights into the sub-basement. "This is it?" Morales said, "You sure?" Glenn nodded, "I really scoped this place out the other times I was here. This is the only thing in the building that goes down. . . But I've never gone down it. Who'd want to, right?" Everybody looked at Glenn, he got a scared looked on his face, "Oh. . . great. . ."

I felt guilty, "We'll be right behind you."

Glenn shook his head, "No you won't Not you."

I gave him a confused look, "Why can't we?"

He sighed, "Look. . . until now I've always came here by myself. In and out, grab a few things no problem. The first time I bring a group everything goes to hell. . . No offence." Glenn pointed down the ladder with his flashlight. "If you want me to go down into the sub-basement, that's fine. But only if we do it my way. . It's tight down there. If I run into something I have to get out quick, I don't want you all jammed up behind me and getting me killed. . . I'll take one person." Rick stepped forward towards Glenn but he shook his head, "Not you either, you've got Merles gun and I've seen you shoot. I'd feel better if you were out in that store watching those doors and guarding our ass." Glenn pointed to Andrea and me, "You guys have the other guns, you should go with him." He then pointed to Morales, "You be my wingman. Jacqui stays here. If something happens, yell down to us get us back up here in a hurry."

Jacqui nodded, "Okay."

"Okay, everybody knows their jobs," Rick said as he patted Glenn's back. "Let's go you three." Kira let go of my hand, giggled and started running into the store. "Kira, wait for us!" I quietly yelled as I ran after her. When I ran into the store I couldn't see her, I began to panic, "Kira!" My heart was racing then I heard a 'boo!' and felt something hit me, it was Kira. I grabbed my chest, "Kira. . I-. . You can't do that!" I scolded. Kira looked down at her feet, "I. . . I know, Jade. B-but I just wanted to have some fun with you. . I haven't had fun in a long time and. . . and. ." She began to cry. "Oh, Monkey." I hugged her, "Oh, Monkey. I'm sorry I snapped at you. . .It's just that you can't play around like that with the walkers around. . It's not like what it used to be. I promise when we get somewhere good and safe I'll play with you as long as you want." She nodded and started to look at things around the door, I could tell she felt bad for what she did. "Stay away from the door and close to us." She nodded again without saying a word.

I walked over to Rick while still keeping an eye on Kira. "What's goin' on?" I asked, leaning on the counter. Rick laughed and sighed a little, "Teaching Andrea how to turn off the safety of a gun." I smiled and raised my eyebrows, "Oh really now?" Andrea gave me a little glare and looked at a necklace. Rick began to walk around the store. "See something you like?" I asked, eyeing the necklace. Andrea couldn't stop smiling, "Not me, but I know someone who would." She looked up at me, "My sister. She's just a kid in some ways. Unicorns, dragons, she's into all the stuff, but mermaids? They rule. . . She loves mermaids."

"Why don't you take it?"

"There's a cop in the room," Andrea said, half-joking-half-serious. She let out a sigh, "Would it be considered looting. . .?"

I laughed a little and gave her a smile. "Andrea, I'm pretty sure you've done worse things than looting. Trust me, it'll be fine."

Andrea smiled at me, took the necklace off of the display and put it in her pocket.

I almost jumped five feet in the air when the walkers broke through the first set of glass windows. Kira ran to me and grabbed my hand, she was shaking. They started banging on the second set of glass. The others ran into the room, "What'd you find down there?" Rick asked. Glenn shook his head, "Not a way out." "We need to find a way out," I blurted out. Rick headed for the stairs, "Let's get to the roof." We nodded and followed him up the steps. When we made it to the roof Glenn pulled out a pair of binoculars and handed them to Rick, he began to look around, "That construction site, those trucks, they always keep keys on hand." Morales grabbed the binoculars and looked through, "You'll never get passed those walkers." He commented.

Rick looked at Glenn with hope in his eyes, "You got us outta that tank. . ."

Glenn nodded, "Yeah, but they were feeding. . . They were distracted."

"Can we distract them again?" Rick asked, leaning on the ledge.

"Right," Merle chimed in, "listen to him, he's onto something. A diversion. . . like on Hogan's Hero." He smirked.

"God, give it a rest!" Jacqui yelled.

I stood next to Rick and crossed my arms, "They're drawn by sounds, right?"

"Right, like dogs," Glenn answered. "They hear sound, they come."

"What else?"

"Besides that they can hear you," Morales said. "They see you, smell you, and if they catch you they eat you."

I tensed up, "They can tell us by smell?"

"Can't you?" Glenn asked.

"They smell dead, we don't," Andrea informed. 'It's pretty distinct. . ."

Rick sighed, "I have an idea." Rick walked to the door but then stopped to look at me, "It's going to be pretty gory. . Kira and you should stay up here and help T-Dog keep an eye on Merle and be our eye in the sky while we see how my plan works, okay?" I looked at Kira and quickly back to him, "I- Should I go with you if you need any help? Rick shook his head, "Just watch Kira and keep an eye on Merle." I nodded and watched him leave with the others. I pointed next to T-Dog, "Go sit next to him, okay?" She nodded and set next to him as he tried the c.b. again. I leaned over the ledge and looked down at all the walkers, "I wonder what they've thought of to get us out of this one. . ." I mumbled.

I heard a loud noise of a door opening, I rushed to the other side of the roof to see what was going on. I looked over the ledge to see that Rick and some of the others grabbing a walker and getting back inside. I stayed and waited to see what would happen next, a few minutes later I saw Glenn and Rick walking down the alley with blood all over them, I cringed. As I was watching I overheard Merle trying to talk to Kira, "Hey, little girlie. Do you mind handing me that saw?" I turned my head to see Kira was hesitating around him. I quickly went over there and made sure they weren't close to each other, "Don't go near that man! He's a bad man, Kira." She nodded and sat down back next to T-Dog.

A few minutes later I heard the door slam open and I saw the rest of the group running over to the ledge. "Hey! What's happening, man!?" Merle yelled, but nobody answered. "T-Dog, try the c.b." Morales said. "Hey, common! Talk to me, y'all!" Merle yelled again but was still ignored. T-Dog started to try the c.b. "Basecamp, this is T-Dog. Can anybody hear me? Can anybody out there hear me?" Morales was looking through the binoculars, "There!" he said while pointing out into the street. I tried to see what he was pointing at but I saw nothing. We all heard thunder rumbling around us and the clouds darken. "That asshole's out on the street with the handcuff key?!" Merle screamed. "Wait they're out in the streets?!" I asked, demandingly. Morales put his hand on my shoulder, "Calm down. The plan is going pretty well so far. They're covered in walker's guts so the walkers can't identify them as anything but a walker."

I grabbed the binoculars for Morales and started to look for them in the hoard. When I found them I watched intently with a worried look on my face. We heard a sound coming from T-Dogs c.b. "Hello? . . .Hello? Receptions bad on this end. Repeat, repeat." We all looked at T-Dog, but I kept glancing through the binoculars to keep an eye on them. "Is this Shane?" T-Dog asked, no response. "We're trapped on top of the apartment store building, we're surrounded by them." Still no response. "Hello? . . .Hello?" The thunder was starting to become more frequent, I felt a drop of water on my nose, "Oh no. . ." I whispered as I peered through the binoculars, watching them. "What are they going to do!?" I asked in a loud whisper as the rain began pouring.

"It's just a cloud burst," Morales explained. "We get these all the time, it'll pass quickly." I still watched them through the binoculars, "I hope you're right. . ." I felt Kira grab my hand, "Is Rick going to be all right?" I took my eyes away from the binoculars and handed them to Morales, "Yeah. . ." I lied, I had no Idea but I didn't want to make her worry," They'll be fine. ." I could feel my clothes start sticking to my body and I saw Kira starting to shiver. I took her hand and led her to the door and inside, "Stay inside, you'll be dry in here, okay?" She nodded. "Okay." I gave her a kiss on the forehead and went back over to the others. I moved the wet hair out of my face, "What's going on?" Morales sighed and looked at me, "They're being chased by them. . ." My eyes widened, "What?!"


	6. Chapter 6

I quickly snatched the binoculars out of Morales's hands and look through them, "Common, common! Run faster. . !" I saw them climb over the fence and I let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn't over yet. Rick started shooting the ones that were trying to climb over the fence while Glenn searched for the keys. "Hurry up," I said to myself in a worried tone. I saw Glenn throw Rick some keys and they headed towards one of the trucks while the walks got over the fence and headed towards them. They started to back up and drive away, as soon as they did the horde of walkers broke through the fence. "They're leaving us. . ." Andrea said. They all started yelling, "No! No! Come back!"

I noticed the rain had stopped, I took a deep breath began to speak, "You guys, listen. Rick wouldn't just leave us here, he has a plan and he will be back." I motioned Kira to come over here and I began to rub her arms and legs in an effort to keep her warm. A few minutes later we heard Glenn on T-Dog's c.b. "Be ready to meet us up in front of the store." Everybody started grabbing their things and rush out the door. As everybody began rushing down the stairs Merle started to yell, "Hey! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE! MORALES! ANDREA! T-DOG! JACQUI! JADE!" When he said my name I stopped and looked at him, I felt so bad, you can't just leave somebody like that. "Common, Jade!" Kira yelled as she kept pulling me towards the door. Kira and I hurried ourselves down the stairs but I still couldn't help but feel bad for him. I could hear his voice echo down the stairs, "YOU GUYS CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE! IT'S INHUMANE!"

As we got to the main floor everybody rushed into a room and put their hands on the chain so they could pull open the garage door when needed. We heard a loud beeping of a car alarm. "Shh," Morales whispered. "W-what is that?" Andrea asked. A few moments of just listening to our surroundings we heard a loud bang on the metal door. Everyone began pulling on the chain, making the garage door rise up. Everyone started throwing their things into the back of the truck and jumped into it. I helped Kira up there and then hoisted myself up there next to her. We could hear the walkers coming in through the store. Rick started to speed away, we could see the walkers coming after us. T-Dog shut the door to the back of the truck, we all sat in silence and I held Kira close to me.

It was all silence until T-Dog started to speak, "I dropped the damn key. . ." Nobody said a single word. I looked around the truck, "Where's Glenn. . ?" Rick cleared his throat, "He's fine." Back to silence again. "Best not to dwell on it," Morales said. "Merle's being left behind. . . Nobody's going to be sad he didn't come back," He paused. "Except maybe Daryl."

"Daryl?" Rick asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"His brother," Morales sighed.

We heard the same car alarm again and Glenn passed by us while fist bumping the air. "Well, at least somebody's having a good day," I said as I peeked over their seats. After about ten minutes of driving later we ended up at a camp. Morales patted Rick's shoulder and looked back at Kira and me, "Come meet everybody." Andrea lifted open the truck's back door and leaped out, everybody followed her, you could hear everybody reuniting. "I hope we find Rick's family soon," I sighed. I jumped out of the back of the truck and helped Kira out.

I held her hand and she clenched onto it, hard. "Are you okay, Monkey?" She looked up at me, "Will we be safe here?" I knelt down to her level and looked at her in the eye, "I. . I'm not sure, Monkey. But I'll do my best to keep you safe." She smiled at me and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. I stood back up and headed towards the group. I watched as Rick was running towards a child and a woman, they were running towards him as well. I heard the kid yelling, "Dad! Dad!" I smiled, Rick had finally found his family.

"J-Jade. . . Is that you? I heard a random voice calling my name. I turned around to see none other than Trevor. That douchebag is still alive?! I headed towards him with a clenched fist, he didn't realize until I punched him so hard that he fell backwards onto the ground. "How dare you leave Kira alone all by herself! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" I started kicking at his stomach over and over again as I yelled at him. Someone pulled me back away from him, "I'll fucking kill you! You piece of shit!" Trevor got up and held his stomach. "You stupid bitch," he mumbled as he went back into his tent.

The person holding me back let me down reluctantly and I turned around to face them. "So you were with Rick, huh?" The man asked. I nodded slowly, "Yeah. . ." I realized that my cheeks were burning with fury. I tried to calm down, I didn't want to take it out on anybody that didn't deserve it.

"What's your name?" The man crossed his arms and looked down at me.

"Jade, Jade Waldgrave, you?"

"Shane Walsh," We shook hands. "I'll show you to a tent where you two can stay at." He kneeled down to Kira's level, "What's your name, Munchkin?"

Kira made her eyes into slits, puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. "I am not a munchkin, you know. . . I've killed tons a walkers. . ."

Shane's face showed that he was impressed and shocked at the same time, he raised both of his eyebrows, "Oh really now?"

Kira nodded.

Shane got up and headed towards the tents, "So, what's your name then, firecracker?"

Kira started to giggle, "It's Kira."

"Well, I'm going to call you Firecracker, alright?"

Kira nodded and kept giggling, "Okay!"

Shane stopped in front of a tent and motioned his hands towards it. "Here is your new home," He paused. "For now."

I smiled at him, "Thanks."

He smiled right back at me, "You're welcome." He starting walking away but then turned around, "Supper will be in a few hours, I'll get you when it's ready."

I nodded in response. I began to take off my shoes as I went into the tent. When I got into the tent Kira was already in a sleeping bag. "Tired, Monkey?" I asked as I snuggled up close to her. She nodded and rubbed her eyes. "I'll keep a watch on you, Monkey. Just get some sleep. I know it was an eventful day today. . ." I closed my eyes and she snuggled next to me. "I really hope it isn't like this every day. . ." I thought to myself. "But I bet it will be. ." I slowly drifted asleep next to Kira.

I felt a slight shaking, "Hey, get up." I mumbled some curse words and opened my eyes, it was dark out. "Shit. . . How long was I out. . . ?" Shane helped me up, "Maybe two or there hours. . ? Anyways, food's ready." I bent over and started to wake Kira up, "Common, Kira. Food's ready and I know you're hungry. . !" She sat up quickly, "Food?!" She exclaimed in a hushed whisper. Shane and I laughed, "Yeah, let's go." I grabbed Kira's hand and Shane led the way to the fire where everybody was already at. Kira and I sat next to Rick and his family. When we got settled down Shane handed us our food. "Thanks," Kira and I both said.

It was silent while everyone was eating then an older man with a fisherman's hat began to speak, "So, we know who Rick is. . . Now who are you two?" I cleared my throat and started to talk, "I'm Jade, and this is my little sister, Kira." "Well, I'm Dale," he began pointing around the fire, "This is Amy, Lori, and Carl. You've met the rest at this fire." He smiled at me and pointed over to the other fire, "Now over there is Carol, Ed, and Sophia. . . I'd try my best to stay away from Ed if I were you." I gave him a confused look, "Okay. . ?" He smiled at me, "But I bet you can handle yourself, huh? After that scene, you made earlier today." I awkwardly laughed," Hahaha. . . yeah. ."

It went back to silence, until Dale broke it again. "How was it like waking up from your coma and ending up here?" He asked, directing the questions towards Rick and I. I'm guessing Rick had told him how we met and how we were both in a coma. "Disoriented," Rick said, "I guess that comes closest." He paused, "Disoriented. . ." "Confusion," I added in. "Fear. . all of those things." Rick looked at me, "Yeah. . . But disoriented comes closest, don't you think?" I nodded in response. "Words can be meager things, sometimes they fall short," Dale explained. Rick kept talking, "I felt like I was ripped out of my life. . Put somewhere else. For a while I thought I was trapped in some coma dream, something I might not wake up from. . ever."

Carl looked up at Rick, "Mom said you died. ." Rick looked down at Carl and began to stroke his cheek, "She had every reason to believe that. . . Don't you ever doubt it." I noticed Lori looking at Shane with a weird expression on her face and then back to Rick at Carl, "When things started to get really bad they told me at the hospital that they were going to evacuate you and the other patients to Atlanta. . and it never happened." "Well I'm not surprised. . after Atlanta fell," Rick said, "And from the looks of that hospital, it got over run. . and looks don't deceive." Shane looked at Rick and started talking, "I barely got them out. . ." Rick looked back at Shane, "I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane. . . I can't even begin how to express it. ." Dale laughed a little, "There goes those words again. . falling short."

Kira looked up at me and poked me in my check, "I'm tired. ." Kira and I got up, "It was nice to meet you guys. . Kira's tired so we're should probably get going to bed now. I'll see everyone in the morning." Everybody said their goodnights to us and we headed to our tent. On our way to our tent we could hear Shane snapping at someone for something. I zipped open the tent, Kira and I slipped in and I zipped it back up. We kicked our shoes off and snuggled close to each other. "What do you think of this group?" I asked as I twirled a piece of her hair around my finger. She shrugged, "I dunno. . . I don't like Trevor being here." I put my forehead to hers, "I know. . Let's try our best to stay away from him. If he gets close to you, yell for somebody. And try to stay away from that Ed guy too." She nodded and talked as she yawned, "Okay. . . Goodnight, Jade." I pulled her closer to me, "Night, Monkey."

I opened my eyes to see that I was face to face with Kira, she was still sleeping. I kissed her on the forehead, put on my shoes, grabbed my knife, slide it into my pants and left the tent. When I got done zipping up the tent and headed towards where everybody would be I saw Shane putting someone in a headlock, I haven't seen them before. "What a wonderful way to start the morning," I said to Glenn, sarcastically as I rubbed my temples. He laughed a little, "Haha. . yeah."

"What's goin' on anyways?" I tilted my head.

Glenn sighed, "Daryl found out what happened to Merle."

"Ah, I see." I saw things calming down between Daryl, Shane and Rick. "I should probably get going, I gotta go and wake up Kira. I'll see ya later."

Glenn put his hands in his pockets, "Yea, see ya."

As I went on my way to the tent I noticed how quiet it was, it seemed like no walkers were around for miles. It seemed like a normal camping ground if you didn't know what was going on on in the rest of the world. When I got into the tent I began to shake Kira gently, "Monkey, time to wake up." She turned over with her eyes already open, it looks like she's been up for a little, "Is everything okay out there?" I nodded, "Yeah, I think things have cooled down. You should get dressed in some new clothes, okay?" "Okay," she said as she started to undress. I left the tent to give her some privacy, I walked up to Rick who looked like he was going somewhere. "Where are you going all dolled up like that?" I joked. He smiled at me, "Me and some of the others are going to get Merle."

I sighed, "But you just got reunited with your family, Rick. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet. ."

"I know, but we're going to be back, I promise. I have to do this, okay?"

I nodded in response, "Be careful."

"You too." He paused for a moment and put his hand on my shoulder, "And Jade, no matter what happens in this messed up world promise me you'll always be your wise-cracking-self, okay?"

I smiled at him and tipped my imaginary hat, "Anythin' fer you, Officer Friendly."

We hugged and said our goodbyes. I sighed and watched as Rick, T-Dog, Daryl and Glenn left in the truck.


	7. Chapter 7

I went back to the tent, "You done getting dressed?" I heard a quiet yes and came into the tent. I saw Kira holding her dirty clothes, "What do we do with these?" I grabbed them from her, "I bet there's somewhere where I can wash em', so don't worry, Monkey." Kira and I left the tent and went down to the quarry where everybody was. Kira began to pull at my shirt. "Yeah?" "Can I go be with Shane and Carl? " I nodded, "Yeah, but stay within my sight." I watched her as she ran over to them. I couldn't help but smile, I'm so glad that Kira was still herself at heart after all this time in this even more messed up world.

I walked over to the group of women who were washing clothes. "Hey," I started messing with the clothes in my arms, "Mind if I sit with you guys and wash some clothes?" They all nodded and I sat next to Carol. I took a piece of clothing and started rubbing it against the washboard. The other began to talk about the things they missed as they were cleaning the clothes. "I miss my Maytag," Carol said

"I miss my Benz," Andrea said, "My sat-nav. ."

"I miss my coffee maker," Jacqui added, "With the dual-drip filter and built in grinder, honey."

"I miss my computer. . ." Amy sighed, "Texting. ."

"I miss my vibrator," Andrea blurted out.

"Oooo. . . !" Everyone said and began laughing.

Carol looked around the group and whispered, "Me too."

We all lost it and began laughing uncontrollably.

A man walked over to us, "What's so funny?" He asked.

Andrea sighed, "Just swapping war stories, Ed."

Ed walked around while eyeing us.

Andrea looked at him, "Problem, Ed?"

"None that concerned you," He paused. "You oughta focus on your work. This ain't no comedy club."

I looked around at the other women, was he serious? I sighed loudly and kept doing the laundry.

Andrea got up, holding a piece of wet clothing, and went up to Ed, "I'll tell you what. You don't like how your laundry's done? You are welcome to pitch in and do it yourself. Here." She threw the wet piece of clothing to Ed.

Ed threw it back at her and you could hear her make a disgusted noise. "That ain't my job, missy."

You could tell Andrea was about to blow. "Andrea, don't," Amy said.

"What IS your job, Ed? Sitting on your ass and smoking cigarettes?"

Ed took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed it at Andrea. "It sure as hell ain't listening to some uppity, smart mouthed, bitch. I'll tell you what." He motioned Carol at him, "C'mon let's go."

Carol started to stand up from her seat. "I don't think she needs to go anywhere with you, Ed." Andrea snapped.

"And I say it's none of your business." He motioned Carol at him again, "Common, you heard me." I heard Carol and Andrea arguing whether she should go or not. "Hey, don't think I won't knock you on your ass. Just 'cause you're some college educated cooze, alright?" He motioned Carol towards him once again, "Hey, you come on now. Or you gon' regret it later.

Jacqui glared at Ed, "So she can show up with fresh bruises later?" Ed started to laugh. "Yeah, we've seen them!" She stated.

Ed exhaled,"Stay out of it, now come on." I inhaled and exhaled slowly as I stood up while he kept talking. "You know what? This ain't none of your business. Now I'm done talking." He was about to grab Carol's arm but I stood in between them.

I crossed my arms, "You're not taking her."

"Or what?!" He yelled as he slapped me.

I froze for a minute and everything became quiet. I snapped my head towards him, burning with rage. "Or this," I said as kneed him in the junk. He kneeled down to the ground, I picked his head up and headbutted him. When he was lying on the ground I started kicking his stomach over and over again until the girls pulled me back. When I cooled down I noticed that Shane also started whaling on him too. My heart was still racing with adrenaline. I felt Kira by my side and heard the women begging for Shane to stop.

I pushed Kira's face into my chest, covered her ears and rocked her back and forth to try to distract her from everything. After everything was all over and Ed was helped back to his tent by Carol, the others went back to washing clothes in silence. I broke the silence, "Could you guys do our clothes. . ? I need to talk to Kira." Andrea nodded as I handed her the clothes. I took Kira's hand and we started walking to our tent, on our way to the tent I stopped for a moment and heard digging, "Go on ahead and wait for me in there. She nodded and I went up to the noise to find a guy digging holes, there were about ten. "Hey, what are you doing. . . ?" No response. I moved closer to him, "Hello?" Still nothing. I sighed in frustration and headed to my tent.

I zipped up the tent and sat in front of Kira, "I'm sorry you keep seeing me lash out like that. . ."

She shook her head, "It's fine, you're just trying to protect people. She paused for a moment and crawled into my lap, "I just wish we could back to the way things were. ."

I looked around the tent," Say. . . how about we have a little pillow fight like we always did?" I looked down at her, smiling.

She squealed, jumped out of my lap and grabbed two pillows for the both of us. We began to hit each other over and over again as we giggled. "Mind keeping it down in there" We heard a voice say. I peeked out the tent to see it was Dale, "Yeah, sorry." Dale shook his head, "It's okay, we just have to keep noise to a minimal. . We never know when they'll show up, you know?" I nodded, "Yeah. ." I looked at Kira and we smiled at each other. I ruffled her hair and we got out of the tent, "Why don't you go play with Carl and Sophia?" She nodded and I watched as she ran towards them.

I sat next to Carol who was sitting in a removed seat of a van, "Do you need any help sewing?" All she did was nod and hand me a piece of clothing with a needle and thread. I began to sew and it was all quiet between us, after a few minutes Carol broke the silence, "Why did you do that for me. . . ?" I focused on the clothing for a moment and then looked at her, "I know what it's like to be abused. . . To be hurt constantly and having no power against them and I couldn't stand by and let that happen to someone else.

Carol looked shocked for a second, "You don't seem like the kind of person to take that. . What made you change?"

I stared in the direction of Trevor's tenet, it was farther than the others. I sighed, "Kira had told me that Trevor left her behind while a group of walkers were around and after that I just knew that I had to be strong for both Kira and myself. We have to survive. We just have to. . ." I looked down at my lap. I thought I had lost her and I didn't know what I would do if something like that were to happen again. . .

Carol put her hand on my shoulder and smiled at me, "You're brave, Jade. I hope someday that I'll be strong enough to protect myself and the ones I love. ."

I smiled back at her, "You will, everybody has the strength to change but they have to make that decision for themselves." I grabbed her shoulder and gently squeezed it. We smiled at each other again and went back to sewing.

I looked up and in the distance I saw Andrea and Amy carrying some fish, you could hear everybody applauding them. Carl and Kira ran up to the fish and began to examine and poke at them, "Woah! Can you teach us how to do that?!" They asked. "Sure!" Amy said, smiling. "We can teach you a whole bunch of things, if that's alright with you guys." Lori and I nodded, "You don't see us complaining," I grinned, "It would be a valuable skill to teach them." Dale came up to us, "I don't want to alarm anyone but. . we may have a bit of a problem. ." He turned around and pointed in the direction of the guy who was digging on top of the hill.

Everybody followed Dale up the hill, "He's been out here for hours. . ." He said. When we got up there we just stared at him digging for a moment. "Hey, Jim," Shane said, breaking the silence. He ignored him and kept digging. "Why don't you hold up, alright? Just give us a second, please?" Jim sighed in frustration and stuck his shovel into the ground, "What do you want?" "We're all just a little concerned, man. That's all." "Dale says you've been out here for hours," I spoke up. "So?" Jim asked, annoyed with us. "So why are you diggin?" Shane asked as he crossed his arms.

Jim just stood there.

"You headin' to China?" Shane joked.

"Doesn't matter," Jim started digging again. "I'm not hurtin' anyone."

"Maybe yourself," Dale said, "It's 100 degrees out. You can't keep this up. ."

"Sure I can! Watch me."

I stood next to Dale and began to speak, "Jim, they're not going to say it so I guess I will. You're scaring people, Jim. You're scaring Carl, Sophia, and even Kira."

"They got nothin' to be scared of. ." He stopped digging for a moment and looked up at us. We stared at him in silence until he broke it, "I mean, what the hell people? I'm out here by myself why don't ya'll leave me the hell alone." He started digging again.

"We think you need to take a break," Shane said, getting closer to him. "Okay? Why don't you get yourself in the shade, some food. I'll tell you what, in a little bit I'll come out here and help ya myself."

No response.

"Jim? Just tell us what it's about. Just give me the shovel."

Jim stuck the shovel in the ground again, "Or what?"

"There is no 'or what' I'm asking you. I'm coming to you and I' asking you, please. I don't want to take it from ya."

"If I don't. . . then what? Then you're gonna beat my face in like Ed? Y'all seen his face, what's left of it." There was silence. "See that's what happens when someone crossed you." He began to dig again.

"That was different, Jim."

"You weren't there, Jim," I said. "Ed was out of control. He would've hurt Carol badly."

"That is their marriage! Not ours!" He yelled at us. "You are not judge and jury." He pointed at Shane, "Who voted you king boss, huh?"

"Jim, I'm not here to argue with you, right? Just give me the shovel." Shane tried to get the Shovel from Jim, but he keeps it away from him.

Jim pushed Shane away from him and started swinging the shovel at him. Shane had had enough of Jim and he tackled him, pinned him down and put cuffs on him. Jim struggled under Shane and began to panic. "Jim, no one's going to hurt you," Shane said as he was putting the cuffs on him. "It's lies!" Jim said, "That's the biggest lie there is. . I told that to my wife and two boys. I said it a hundred times. . It didn't matter." You could tell by the tone of his voice that he was about to cry. "They came out of nowhere, there were dozens of em. The only reason I got away was that the dead were too busy eating my family." We all stood there for a moment in silence. I was shocked to hear what he had to say, does it really get out of hand that quickly. . ? Shane stood up, grabbed Jim by the wrist and headed him down the hill. We all broke up and started doing our own thing.

I've been looking around the camp for something to do. I saw Jim sitting in front of a tree, he looked sweaty and overworked so I decided to go over there and see how he was doing. I went over by his side, there was a bucket full of water with a little cup inside of it. I kneeled down beside him, "Hey, Jim. You look exhausted. . Do you need some water?" He just stared at me for a moment, "Sure. . ." I dipped my hand into the bucket to fish out the little cup and began to tip the cup into his mouth slowly so he wouldn't choke on it. "Can you pour some on my head?" I nodded and got more water from the bucket and poured it all over his head.

"Do you know how long they're going to keep me like this. . . ?"

I shook my head, "I'm. . . I'm not sure. You'll probably have to ask Shane, I'll send him over in a little bit."

He looked over at Lori, Carl, Carol, Sophia, and Kira. "I'm sorry If I scared your little boy or your little girls.

Lori looked up from the homework Carl was working on, "You had sunstroke. Nobody's blamin' you." She continued to work on the homework with Carl.

"You're not scared now are ya?"

Sophia looked over at him, "No, sir."

I patted Jim on his shoulder reassuringly and stood up, "Can you tell us why you were digging?" I asked. He looked up at me with a puzzled look, "I had a reason. . . don't remember, " he paused, "something I dreamt of last night. He started talking to Carl about Rick and I started to think about what he had said. That the only reason he got out alive was that the walkers were eating his family and how out of hand it got. . . Jim seems like a good guy from what I could tell. Could I have misunderstood the situation with Trevor? No. He's a horrible person who didn't care about anyone but himself. I decided to talk to Kira about what it was like those first few months of this mess while I was out in the hospital, I don't know why I didn't ask her about it earlier.

I walked over to Kira, "Can we talk about something important?" She put down the pencil she was using to doodle, nodded and followed me back to the tent. We sat down on the ground and got comfortable, I looked at her for a moment, ". . . Can you tell me what had happened while you were with Trevor? Before he left you? If you're comfortable with it that is." She nodded, you could tell it troubled her a little but she began to tell me everything. me what had happened while you were with Trevor? Before he left you? If you're comfortable with it that is." She nodded, you could tell it troubled her a little but she began to tell me everything.


	8. Chapter 8

**Kira's P.O.V.**

 _A few weeks after the outbreak._

 _Abandoned house_.

I jolted up, my eyes began to look around at my surroundings. I was still in the same room I went to sleep in and nothing had happened. The sun was about to rise and Trevor was still by my side, every time I go to sleep I worry I'll wake up and he won't be there, even though he's mean he's all that I have right now. I noticed that I was sweating and my heartbeat was fast, I had another nightmare about the monsters getting me. I crawled over to Trevor's side and began to shake him, he groaned, "What do you want?" I sniffled, "I had another nightmare." He muttered something under his breath and tried going back to sleep. "When are we going to visit Jade in the hospital?" I whispered. He sighed loudly and sat up, "Can you just shut the hell up?! I'm trying to get some sleep and you're bein' an annoying' little brat." I kept pestering about it and he had had enough of it, "LISTEN! Jade is dead. Get over it and go to sleep." My stomach sank, I moved to the corner of the room and started to weep quietly until I fell back asleep. She couldn't be dead, there's no way. . .

I was awakened by a hard kick to my side. "Common," He hissed. "It's time to go scavenge for food." I got up and rubbed my side. When I grabbed my backpack full of supplied and put it on I winced in pain, I bruised all over because Trevor hurts me when I do anything remotely wrong. When the pain weakened I followed Trevor out of the house. While we were out we walked passed by the hospital. "Trevor! Please! Let's go see her! She can't be dead. . .!" I pleaded. Trevor stopped dead in his track and turned to me, "Listen, if you mention her again or talk about going to the hospital one more time I'm going to leave you behind and let you get eaten by those things! Got it?!" I choked down my tears and nodded at what he had said. I looked at the hospital for a moment and continued to follow him.

 _A few weeks later._

 _Abandoned store._

I walked down the aisle of the store, I couldn't see anything useful from what I could see, I was too short to see anything on the top shelves. I stopped walking when I had kicked something that was on the floor, I kneeled down to see a stuffed toy, it was a girl with straw pigtails, she looked dirty but she still looked pretty. I smiled and picked her up. Trevor saw what I was doing and came over to me, "What do you think you're doing?!" He boomed. I cowered, "You have to be quiet!" I whispered. He took the doll out of my hands and threw it across the room, "I don't care! I'll be loud if I want to be loud! I'm not gonna let some little snot nosed brat tell me what to do!" I was about to go and get the doll but then he grabbed my hand, "Where do you think you're going!? I oughta beat the sh-" He stopped mid-sentence and dropped my hand. "Fuck. . ." He whispered.

I looked in the direction he was looking at and my heart dropped, there was about ten monsters inside of the store. I began to panic and looked up at Trevor, hoping he would know what to do. He took out his knife and began killing them and heading towards the exit. I tried to follow but I got left behind, "Trevor! Come back! I'm stuck in here!" You could tell he didn't look back and kept running. More and more of them coming into the store. I took out a gun that I stole from a dead body a while back, Trevor wouldn't allow me having this but I kept it hidden from him. I aimed the gun at the head of the monster, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. I nearly missed it but the monster fell down to the ground, but more still kept coming. I show two more down before I ran out of ammo. I began to tear up, I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to die.

The monsters got me stuck in a corner, I tried to get them away from me but it didn't work. My vision started to get blurry with tears, this was it for me. . . At least I would be with my big sister again. I slid down the wall and whimpered as they got closer to me, their growling noises were so loud in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and a few moments later it was all quiet. I looked up to see a man and a little boy around my age standing in front of me. The man held his hand and I took it. "What's your name?" He asked. My lips trembled and I sniffed, "K-Kira. . ." The man wiped my tears and gave me a weak smile, "I'm Morgan. . and this is my son, Duane." Duane waved at me. "Are you all alone?" Morgan asked. I nodded, "The only person I had just left me behind. . !" I could feel the tears coming back again but then Morgan patted my back and said, "You can come with us. . I'll protect ya."

 **End of Kira's P.O.V.**

"That bastard. . ." I muttered to myself. I could tell she was still uneasy, so I put her close to me and hugged her. "You're so brave, Monkey," I murmured to her as I stroked her hair, "You're with me now. . ." I could feel her nod, "I know that I can take care of myself. . . sort of. I'm glad that you're here with me." I kissed her on the forehead and I had noticed that the time she took to tell me her whole story it had was night. "You hungry, Monkey?" She giggled, "Of course I am!" We laughed, got up and out of the tent and went to the fire where the others would be. When we got to the fire everybody was already eating their food, I got our plates full of food and we sat down by everybody else. "I gotta ask you, man," Morales said, directed towards Dale, "it's been driving me crazy." Dale laughed a little, confused, "What?"

"That watch."

Dale began to mess with the watch, "What's wrong with my watch?"

"I see you. Everyday. Same time. Winding that thing like a village priest saying mass." Andrea nodded in agreement at Morales statement.

"I've wondered this myself," Jacqui said, smiling.

"I'm missing the point," Dale said, also smiling.

"Unless I've misread the signs, the world seems to have come to an end," Jacqui paused for a moment, "at least a speed bump for a good long while."

"But there's you," Morales began, "everyday winding that stupid watch."

"Time. It's important to keep track, ain't it?" Dale asked. "The days at least." Everybody around the fire was silent, "Don't you think Andrea?" It looked like she didn't want to be put on the spot like that, "Back me up here," all Andrea did was a little laugh and began to drink whatever she was drinking. Everybody was still silent, but Dale, "I like- I like what," he paused and tried to think, "the father said to the son when he gave him the watch, it was handed down for said, 'I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire, which will fit your individual needs no better than it did mine of my father's before me, I give it to you not that you may remember time. But that you may forget it for a moment now and then and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.'"

There was silence until Amy spoke up, "You're so weird." Everyone started to laugh.

Kira poked me, "I need to go get something from the tent." She sat down her plate and got up. I looked at her with concern, "You want me to come with you?" She shook her head and smiled at me, "It's okay, I just have to grab something and. . uhm. . . got to the bathroom." I smiled at her, "Whoops, sorry. Take your time, Monkey." I listened to people tell stories as I finished up the rest of my fish and gulp down my drink. I almost choked on my drink when I heard Amy do a blood-curdling scream. We all looked in her direction and saw that a walker has bitten her in the arm and that more walkers were coming our way.

Everybody got up to their feet, half of the people were screaming and the other half were taking out the walkers. My instantly went to Kira, "Kira!" I began to scream her name over and over again as I ran over to the tent. When I got to the tent I looked inside but there was nobody in there, my heart sank. "Kira!" I yelled at the top of my lungs but heard nothing but the blood-curdling screams of our group and the loud groans from the walkers. When I turned around a walker got on me and tried to get a piece of me. I struggled with it for a minute until someone shot it's head off, it was Rick. Rick pulled me up to my feet and I began to babble to him, "Kira's gone, Rick! She only left for a moment to go to the bathroom and now she's gone! I have to find her, Rick!"

"We have to get you someplace safe first, follow me."

I shook my head vigorously, "Not until I find Kira." I saw that he had a few guns on him, "Give me a gun, Rick."

He looked at me for a moment, deciding whether or not he should let me have one. He sighed and handed me one of his guns.

I began running all around the campgrounds looking for Kira. I've killed about five or six walkers until I got around to the outermost part of the camp, it was silent except for the silent gun fires and few screams. I heard a tiny whimper, I looked around to see what it was. When my eyes got to the thing that was whimpering I fell to my knees and tears started to flow out of my like a faucet. I crawled to her and started crying out loud, "No, no, no, no. . !" Kira was bitten on the arm, sides, and one of her legs. She tried to talk but she was in too much pain to. I tried to pick her up but she yelped in pain, so I decided to stay with her. I began to stroke her hair and wipe the tears from her face. "I'm so sorry, Kira. . ." I whispered. My tears fell onto Kira's face, she grabbed my hand and gave me a weak smile. My heart broke watching her.

I rested my forehead against hers and kept crying, I couldn't lose her. . . I had to get help but I couldn't leave her either. There was no help for her anyways, but I had to try. I tried to pick her one on more time, "Come on. . . We have to get to the others." She screamed out in pain again. "I know, Monkey. . . I know. ." I tried not to choke on my tears as I talked. I managed to lift her up into my arms, bridal style and started walking towards camp where everyone would be. After a few yards I couldn't hear her whimpering anymore, I looked down at her and she looked at me blankly. "No, no, no. . . !" I set her on the ground and tried to look for a pulse. Nothing. "No!" I screamed at the top of my lungs and began crying into her chest.

Still crying, I picked Kira up again and headed towards camp. My whole body was shaking from crying. When I arrived back to where everyone was I saw that Andrea was crying over Amy's body. Everybody didn't notice me until I accidently let out a gasp of tears. "She's dead. . ." I managed to croak out. MY knees turned into jelly and I fell onto the ground, still holding onto her. They all looked shocked. I heard someone running towards me. I looked up to see it was Trevor, he looked distraught and out of breath, "I tried to look for you. . ! I saw Kira lying there and I tried to look for you but I couldn't. ." He started to cry a little, something he rarely did. "You should've stayed with her, you idiot!" I yelled. I looked back down at her body, she looked and felt so cold. I wrapped her into a hug and didn't let go. I rocked her back and forth while still weeping. Trevor came to my side and hugged her with me as he was crying.

After a long while of holding onto her, Trevor pulls me away from her and I start crying into his neck. He rubs my back soothingly, "We all should get some rest. . We'll give her a proper burial in the morning." I shook my head and gave a shaky sigh. I stood up, grabbed a shovel, walked around the campgrounds to find a nice place to bury Kira and starting digging. Hours later, or at least it seemed that way, Rick found me. "You know you can do this in the morning," He sighed.

I didn't respond.

"Come on. . Get out of the hole. . You need your rest, Jade."

I ignored him and kept digging like I was in a trance.

He sighed and left me for the time being, knowing I didn't want to be disturbed.

After I was pretty sure I had a good six feet in the ground I sat down in the hole to take a break and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes I was inside a tent I haven't been inside before and it was morning out. I didn't feel like getting up and out of the tent so I drifted in and out of sleep for a while until Rick comes in, "You awake?" I say nothing, but sit up and look at him. "If you want we can give her a proper burial now." I stared at him blankly for a moment and got up. He tried to talk to me again but I didn't respond.

When we got to Kira's body I guess nobody tried to take her out yet and she was one of them. I felt so disgusted in myself for not doing it soon enough, I was only thinking of myself! I should've known she wouldn't want to be one of those things. The others noticed her and Shane pointed his gun at her, seeing him do that made my blood boil. I went up to him and yanked the gun out of his hand, "If you EVER point a gun at my sister again I'll beat the living shit out of you!" Those were the first words I've spoken since last night and everyone looked at me, obviously shocked. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for making her one of them. Kira hears the noise of me yelling and makes her way towards me. I wait till she's close enough to me and I point Shane's gun at her head. The gun begins to shake but I take a shaky breath in, "I'm sorry, Kira," take a breath out and pull the trigger.

The ringing echoed throughout the camp and I watched her as she fell to the ground, it shattered my heart into a million pieces. I dropped the gun onto the ground, went over to her body, picked her up and walked to her grave. As I walked to her grave I kept whispering 'I'm sorry' over and over again. I set her inside the hole and I tried to put dirt on her, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I sink to the ground and start crying again, and then I feel someone's hand on my shoulder. I look up to see Rick. I get up, hug him tightly and weep into his chest. "Do you want me to help you bury her?" He whispered. I nodded. "Do you want people to come here to watch?" I shrugged. He hugged me tighter, "I'll get everybody, just stay here." He squeezed my shoulder before he went to get them.

While I wanted him to get everyone I began to pick flowers to put on her grave. When I got done I started looking at Kira's body, she was wearing a lime green tank top with black shorts and a pair of running shoes. My eyes stopped at her wrist, her charm bracelet. I knew that she would've wanted me to have it in case something were to have happened to her, so I gently slipped it off of her wrist it onto mine so that I could have something to always remind me of her. Once everybody was here Rick started putting the dirty over her body and everybody said nice things about here, even only knowing her for a day the things they said about her were sincere and true. I laid the flowers on the grave and Rick had given me a little wooden headstone with her name and everything, I gave him a weak smile and set it on there.

When everyone had left Trevor came to me, "I'm sorry." I looked at him for a moment but then returned my attention to her grave. "You have to talk sometime. . ." He said. I didn't answer and he sighed in frustration and walked away, leaving me alone. Rick come back to check in on me, "How are you holding up?" I shrug. "We're leaving this place to head towards CDC, to see if they have a cure. . . Jim's bit so we're running out of time. I nodded. Rick and I went back to the others and Shane started talking about what was going to go on, "Everybody, listen up," Shane began, "Those of you with CB's we're going to be on channel 40. Let's keep the chatter down, okay? Now you got a problem and don't have a CB or can't get a signal,or whatever, you're gonna hit your horn one time. That'll stop the caravan. Any questions?"

"We're. . . um, we're not going." Morales said, stepping away from the group with his family.

"We have family in Birmingham. We want to we want to be with our people." His wife, Miranda, said.

"You go on your own, you won't have anyone to watch your back," Shane warned.

"We'll take the chance. I got to do what's best for my family." Morales spoke.

"You sure?" Rick asks, stepping closer to him.

"We talked about it. We're sure." Morales stated.

"Alright, Shane," Rick said, turning towards Shane.

"Yeah, alright."

".357?" Rick asks Shane.

"Yeah." Rick pulled out a gun and handed it over to Morales while Shane handed over some ammo for it.

"The box is half full," Shane said, pulling away from Morales.

"Thank you all. . . For everything." Miranda said, smiling weakly.

"Come here." Lori pulled Miranda in for a hug.

"Good luck, man," Shane said, smiling.

"Appreciate it."

Everybody started to hug them and said their goodbyes.

"Channel 40, if you change your minds. Alright?" Rick said.

"Yeah."

"What makes you think our odds are any better?" Shane asked. Shane and Rick locked eyes for a moment. "Common, let's move out." He ordered as he got into his jeep. I decided to go into the truck with Daryl, I would've gone in the R.V. but it made me uneasy with Jim being bitten.


	9. Chapter 9

After a few miles away from camp, Dale started honking the RV's horn. Everybody stopped their vehicles. Daryl and I got out of the truck and met everybody else in front of the RV. "I told you we'd never get far on that hose. . I said I needed the hose from the van," Dale sighed. Rick examined the hose, "Can you jury-rig it?"

"That's all it's been so far. . It's more duct tape than hose, and I'm out of duct tape." Dale explained.

"I see something up ahead," Shane said, removing the binoculars from his face. "If we're lucky it's a gas station."

Jacqui stepped out of the RV with a worried expression on her face, "Y'all, it's Jim. . . It's bad. . I don't think he can take anymore." The others looked worried, but I knew it was going to happen. . It always will but how many losses could this group take?

"Hey, Rick, want to hold down the fort? I'll drive ahead and see what I can bring back." Shane said as he headed towards the Jeep.

T-Dog stepped forward towards Shane. "Yeah, I'll come along too and back ya up."

"Y'all keep your eyes open now. We'll be right back."

I hoisted myself up onto the roof of the truck, sat there and began to space out. I was in deep thought about Kira and all the good times we've had together. A really good time was her 7th birthday, it was a blast. Trevor and I weren't fighting for once and we went to the carnival and then to Chuck-E-Cheese. . You could tell she was so filled with happiness that she could've exploded with it. Me and her had even had a few good moments in the past few days too. . When we had that pillow fight in the tent and when we snuggled up close to each other and fall asleep. I was snapped out of my thoughts by a hand waving in front of my face, it was Trevor.

He put one of his hands on my cheeks, "You gonna talk to me yet?" He smirked.

I felt like I was about to cry again but swallowed it down. I moved his hand away from my face and glared at him. "Don't touch my face, you bastard," I mumbled.

His face expression changed drastically, "What the fuck did I do?!" He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me off the truck, "Huh?! What did I do to you!?"

I yanked my hand away from him, "I know what happened while I was out in the hospital! Kira told me everything! You're an asshole and you should've been there to protect her!" I could tell some of the group was watching us but I didn't care.

He scoffed and took a step closer towards me, "I protected her for months! It's not my fault she couldn't keep up with me. And besides. . I was there for you last night, wasn't I? Doesn't that make up for anything?" He gave me a soft expression and put his hand on my cheek again, trying to make me forgive him.

I pulled Trevor close to me and I whispered in his ear, "Oh, Trevor. ."

He smiled, thinking he had won my forgiveness.

"I would've sought comfort from a dead walker, but you were the closest thing to me so you had to do." I stepped back from his, patted his shoulder, and gave him a big, fake smile.

I could tell Trevor was about to explode, he stared daggers at me and stomped away. Holy crap! I can't believe I actually did that. . I bet Trevor was planning his revenge already. I sighed and rubbed my forehead. Rick had called everybody in a circle, making me stop thinking about Trevor. I stood in between Rick and Shane, with the others surrounding him, Trevor wouldn't stop glaring at me while I stood next to Rick. Rick started talking, "Jim want's us to leave him here. . That's what he said he wants."

"Is he lucid?" Carol asked.

"He seems to be. . I would say yes," Rick answered.

"Back at the camp," Dale spoke up. "When I said that Daryl might be right and you shut me down." He shook his head, "You misunderstood. . I would never go along with callously killing a man. I was just going to suggest that we ask Jim what he wants. And I think we have an answer. ."

Shane looked at Rick for a moment, "We just leave him here and go? Man, I'm not sure I could live with that."

Lori looked at Shane, "Not your call." Then she looked at Rick, "Neither one of you."

` It was silent for a few moments, Rick and Shane looked at each other and I moved out of their way so they could get inside the RV and get Jim. When they got out of the RV carrying Jim we followed them as they propped him up against a tree. We all said our goodbyes to him except for a few of us, headed back to our designated vehicles and starting driving towards CDC. While Daryl was driving I decided to to get some sleep since I barely had any the night before.

I opened my eyes to see that the CDC was just a few blocks away, I re-adjusted myself as Daryl pulled in behind the other vehicles. I grabbed my backpack and pulled out my gun just in case. I followed behind the others as they looked around at all the dead bodies and the flies flying around them. They were dead bodies everywhere, you could see them go all the way down the streets. I covered my mouth with the top of my shirt as we walked up to the entrance of the CDC. When we got up there we started to lift up some of the shutters. "There's nobody here," T-Dog commented.

"Then why are the shutters down?" Rick argued.

"Walkers!" Daryl yelled.

We all turned around as Daryl shot it in the head with one of his arrows. It started getting dark and everybody started to panic. "You led us into a graveyard!" Daryl yelled as he got into Rick's face.

"He made a call," Dale said in Rick's defense.

"It was the wrong damn call!" Daryl yelled.

Shane pushed Daryl away from Rick and yelled at Daryl, "Shut up! You hear me? Shut up. Shut up!" Shane sighed and turned his direction to Rick, "Rick, this is a dead end."

"Where are we going to go?" Carol asked, full of worry.

Shane put his hand on Rick's shoulder, "You hear me? No blame."

"She's right, we can't be this close to the city after dark," Lori stated.

Shane started backing up, "Fort Benning, Rick, that's still an option!"

"On what?" Andrea argued. "No food, no fuel. That's a hundred miles.

"125, I checked the map," Glenn informed.

"Forget Fort Benning, we need answers tonight! Now!" Lori yelled.

"We'll think of something!" Rick tried to say reassuringly.

"Come on, let's go, let's get out of here." Everybody said as they started jogging towards their vehicles.

I kept staring at the building while everybody was talking, something caught my eye, a camera. I pulled at Rick's sleeve, "Rick, look. There's a camera. . ! It moved, I saw it."

Rick looked at me, concerned. "Are you sure? It could be automated. ."

I nodded my head and moved closer to the camera. "Let us in! I know you can hear me! I know you can!" I yelled as I banged at the shutters. Shane pulled me back but I kept yelling, "Please! you have to help us! We can't lose any more people. . ! We have children with us! No more food. . No more gas. . We don't have anything! YOU HAVE TO LET US IN!" Shane kept pulling my back but I kept kicking and screaming, "YOU'RE KILLING US!" I began to cry. "YOU'RE KILLING US ALL!" I went limp in Shane's arm, I had no more energy in me and I guess Rick was right. After all, there was nobody in there.

Shane started carrying me out of the CDC, we all stopped walking and stood in silence for a moment when we heard a loud noise and turned around to see the shuttered opening and stated into the whiteness that it held. Shane put me down and we all entered the CDC quickly, but cautiously. "Hello?" Rick semi-yelled. Hello?" He said again. "Close door and watch for walkers," He instructed. I looked at how big this place looked. We heard a gun cocked and we all turned and aimed our guns in that direction.

"Anybody infected?" A man yelled we put our guns down.

"One of our group was, "Rick answered. "He didn't make it."

"Why are you here and what do you want?" The man asked, stepping closer.

"A chance. . ."

He raised an eyebrow, "That's asking an awful lot these days."

"I know. ." We all stared at the man, hoping he would let us stay here and give us a chance.

He looked at everybody of our group for a moment, "You all submit to a blood test, that's the price of submission."

Rick nodded, "We can do that."

After getting all of our blood tested he showed us to the dining area and we all starting eating and drinking. Everybody drank alcoholic beverages, except for Sophia and Carl, of course. Carl wanted to try some but ended up not liking it anyways. Everyone was laughing and having a good time while I was just drowning my sorrows with a glass of wine and stuffing my face with food, it had been days since we had eaten and I was taking advantage of it. From time to time Rick would look at me with concern but I pretended not to notice. After a few drinks and everyone was done eating Dr. Jenner started showing us where we could stay.

I walked into the room I was assigned, it was in between Shane and Rick's. I sighed as I face planted my bed, it was way better than sleeping on the ground. I decided that I needed a shower and that I probably stunk. I didn't have the energy, so I rolled off the bed, not a good idea. I groaned and pulled myself up from the ground. I had a bottle of wine in my hand and chugged at it, I was getting a little tipsy. Anything to get my mind off of things. I slipped out of my clothes and headed towards the shower. When the hot water started pouring out of the faucet I couldn't help but let out a moan of pleasure, it felt too good to have hot water relaxing my tense muscles.

After I changed into a pair of black and white striped shorts and a loose tank top. I kneeled down to pick up the cardigan and put that on as well. As I was putting on the cardigan I heard a noise come from the other room. I left the bathroom and didn't see anything. I relaxed a little and turned around to see Trevor pointing a gun at me. I held my hands up and backed up a little. "Do what I say and you won't get hurt." He said. "Okay. . ." I nodded slowly, eyeing the door handle, which was only a few feet away. I tried to make a break for the door but got stopped when he hit me in the head with the butt of his gun and everything went black.


	10. Chapter 10

I opened my eyes slowly and started looking around, I was in my bathroom. I tried moving my hands and feet by my hands were handcuffed to the showerhead and my feet were bound together. "Great. . ." I mumbled. Trevor entered the bathroom and gave me a smug look, "Well, well, well, look who's awake." I glared at him and watched as he walked around the room. "You shouldn't have done that, Jade. ." He sighed, "I was hoping we could be happy together." I laughed, "Happy? With you? Are you drunker than usual?"

"You know what? I've tried to make our relationship good but you just go and fuck it all up!"

"Oh, really? It's not my fault that you're a fucking controlling psychopath! I wish I had killed you when I first saw you at camp. And there's no way that anybody in their right mind would be with you."

He turned away from me and started to laugh hysterically, "You remember how Kira died, right?" He paused and turned around to face me, "Of course you do. . Why wouldn't you?" He made a pouty face and starting talking to me like I was a baby, "Do you want to know what really happened?"

My heart sank, "What did you do to her?! You piece of shit!"

He smiled and began playing with his knife, "I sacrificed her to some walkers so that I could live, of course." He leaned against the counter, "The only reason I kept her alive was so that it would seem like I was the good guy and maybe just maybe you would've come back to me."

"Why?" I managed to choke out.

He stepped close to me, "She was a little brat and I wanted to be with the old Jade! Everything was better until she came into our lives!"

My voice was shaky, "You're so pathetic. . . You know what. . ." I said, half smirking. "You know what you could do. . ?" I paused. "Eat me." I spat on his face, still half smirking.

He wiped the spit off of his face and turned to the counter. He started sharpening his knife, "Fine, have it your way then. Since you're not going to take me back then nobody will have you and you're going to suffer slowly, don't worry about that."

When he got done sharpening his knife he walked over to me. He smiled, put the knife behind my ear and started cutting. I began to scream out in pain as loud as I could, hoping someone would come to help me. After minutes of excruciating pain, I saw a figure behind him, it was Rick. Trevor didn't realize he was there until Rick had him in a choke hold and he had passed out. Rick found the keys to the handcuffs, uncuffed me and cut the bounds around my feet off. I fell into his arms, he held onto me tightly.

Rick set me on top of the counter when Shane appeared and saw the scene. "What the hell is goin' on?" He asked, he was wearing a towel and looked drunk. "Just. . . Just take Trevor to his room, okay?" Rick said. Shane nodded, picked up Trevor's body and left the room. Rick found band-aids, Neosporin, and a washcloth in the cupboard. He began to clean the cuts Trevor had made, they weren't too deep to cause much damage but maybe permanent scars. There were cuts all over my neck and over on my right shoulder. "How you holdin' up?" Rick asked as he started putting band-aids on the cuts. I shrugged, I opened my mouth but then closed it. Rick put his hand on my lap, "If you want to talk about anything you know I'm here for you. . Do you want me to stay with you?" I nodded, "Yes, please. . . I want you to stay with me," I whispered. We both went into the bedroom, Rick sat on the couch while I sat on the bed, drinking the big bottle of wine.

"You want some?" I asked, shaking the bottle in front of his face.

"Uh, sure. . ." He took a swig of it and then handed it back to me.

I was the only one really drinking, but Rick stayed even though we weren't talking that much. After a while of drinking I started to babble about random things, like how my life was before the outbreak happened, how happy I was, etc.

"Oh. . !" Rick said, pulling something out of his pocket. "I've been meaning to give you this." He handed me a folded up picture.

I opened up the picture to see that it was a picture of Kira and me, we were smiling and doing a goofy pose. "H-how did you get this. . . ?" I looked up at him, teary eyed.

He rubbed the back of his neck, "Well. . . I found it while we were at your house the first day we met. . ."

I got up from the bed and went over to the couch to hug Rick, "Thank you. . ." I whispered into his neck.

He rubbed my back, "No problem. ."

I sighed, put the picture on the end table and started chugging at the wine bottle, there was still a lot left. I stood in front of Rick and held out my hand. "Care to dance?" I asked, in a half-snobby-half-slurred tone.

He smiled, he couldn't believe what I was doing. "If only I had a camera," He thought to himself. "But there's no music?"

I grabbed his hand and pulled him up, "Just think of a song in your head, okay?"

He rolled his eyes and laughed, "Okay."

We started out dancing silly but after a few minutes it went to slow dancing, my hands were around his neck and his arms were around my waist. I kept his face in his chest, it comforted me to have him so close. I looked up at him and smiled, he looked down at me and smiled back. I was hesitant for a moment as I stepped on my tiptoes and slowly kissed him on the lips. He pushed me away, covered his mouth with his hand and looked at me shocked. When he pushed me I managed to stumble over my feet and land on the floor butt first.

"What was that for. . ?" I mumbled as I rubbed my butt.

"You can't just do that!" Rick yelled in a hushed whisper as he picked me up and sat me on the bed.

I started giggling like a schoolgirl, "But I couldn't help myself! Your lips just looked too kissable not to . . ."

He sighed in frustration, "Just. . . Just get some sleep." That's all he said before he left the room.

As soon as he shut the door I instantly felt lonely, I reached over to the end table to grab the picture. I stared at the picture for about a good ten minutes and put it back down. I started walking around my room as I kept chugging down the wine until it was all gone. As I made my way to my bed I stumbled over my feet and landed on the ground, frustrated I just laid there and cried until I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes then instantly squeezed them shut, my head was pounding and my mouth was dry. I sat up slowly and began rubbing my temples. "What the hell happened last night. . . ?" I mumbled to myself as I got up and went to the bathroom. When I looked at myself in the mirror I looked like shit. I grabbed a little plastic cup, filled it with water and chugged it down. I started washing my face with water and brushed out my hair. Once I thought I was decent enough to be seen by other people I went into the bedroom, grabbed the picture that Rick gave me last night and left the room.

As I walked down the halls to the dining area I tried to think about all that had happened last night. All that I knew that was Trevor cut me, Rick was there and he gave me a picture. When I made it into the dining area mostly everybody was sitting down and eating. I grabbed a plate and got myself some eggs and other things. I grabbed two pills and swallowed them down, in an effort to take away my hangover. I saw a free spot next to Rick so I decided to sit next to him, he seemed uncomfortable. "You okay, Rick?" I asked. He nodded, "Y-yeah. . Just hungover. ." I noticed he didn't make eye contact with me and kept his eyes on his food. I nodded slowly and started eating my food.

"Ah-hem." I heard a voice say. I looked up to see Lori, she was glaring down at me with a full plate of food.

"Yes?" I asked.

"You're in my spot." She snapped.

"Oh. . . okay." I got up from my spot and moved to a table all by myself. Lori had never done that to me and it shocked me. I looked down at my food and slowly ate it. I noticed a presence at my table and looked up, it was Lori. I sighed, "Yes. . ?"

"We need to talk."

"About. . ?"

"Just follow me."

I got up and followed her into a room where it was just the two of us. "What did you want to talk about. . ?"

She slammed her hand against the wall, "Why did you kiss my husband?"

I gave her a confused look, "W-what. . ?"

"You. Kissed. My. Husband!"

"When?"

"Last night!"

I tried to think about it and then reality hit me like a bus. I did kiss Rick last night! My face went red with embarrassment. "I-I didn't mean to! I was drunk last night. . . !"

"Whatever, just don't do it again. Or you will pay."

I rolled my eyes, "Can I go now?"

She glared at me, "Fine. . . But just know you're on some mighty thin ice."

I could feel her eyes as I left the room.

As I walked down the hall towards the dining area I heard voices. "Doctor I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing. . ." Dr. Jenner sighed, "But you will anyways." "We didn't come here for the eggs," Andrea said. Dr. Jenner sighed again, "Follow me. . ." When I entered the room everybody was up out of their chairs and following Dr. Jenner into another room, I hurried myself to Rick's side, "What's going on?" Rick looked down at me, looked back up and stayed silent for a moment, "I'm not sure. . . But Dr. Jenner is going to show us something." I felt like Rick didn't want to be around me so I decided to follow from behind everybody.

Dr. Jenner lead us into the room where we went in yesterday and introduced us to Vy. Dr. Jenner approached the computers and pushed a button, "Give me a playback of TS 19." "Playback of TS 19." Vy stated. Dr. Jenner looked around at all of us, "Few people ever got the chance to see this. . very few." I clapped my hands together, "Well aren't we special!" I said in a fake overly excited tone, but no one seemed to notice since their focus was on the screen. After it was done loading a video of a skull came up like from an x-ray. "Is that a brain?" Carl asked. "An extraordinary one," Dr. Jenner replied, smirking a bit. "Not that it matters in the end. . Take us in for the E.I.V.". "Enhanced internal view." Vy stated.

We all watched as the camera moved in deep into the brain. "What are those lights?" Shane asked. "It's a person's life," Dr. Jenner began, "experiences, memories, it's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring and all those ripples of light is you," He said, pointing at all of us, "the thing that makes you unique and human."

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked.

"Those are synapses, electric pulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does or thinks from the moment of birth. . till the moment of death."

Rick started stepping closer to Dr. Jenner, "Death? That's what this is? A vidual?"

"Yes. . ." He replied softly that you could barely hear, but then he spoke back up, "Or rather the playback of the vidual."

"This person died. . .?" Andrea questioned quietly. "Who. . ?"

"Test subject 19," Dr. Jenner replied. "Someone who was bitten, an infected, and volunteered to have us. . record the process. Vy, scan over to the first event."

"Scanning to first event." Vy stated.

We watched it fast forward and noticed that the brain started having black inside of it. "What is that. . ." Glenn asked.

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The agreeno glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown then the major organs." We all watched as the brain went fully black. "Then death. . Everything you ever were or ever will be. . . gone."

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked, looking up at her mother.

"Yes. . ." Carol replied, softly.

I could feel the tears coming so I leaned against a desk, facing away from everyone as the tears began to come out of my eyes. "They lost somebody two days ago," Lori informed. "Their sisters. . ."

"I've lost somebody too I know how devastating it is. . ." Dr. Jenner said. It made me mad the way he talked about like it didn't even bother him. "Scan to the second event."

"Scanning to second event." Vy stated.

"The resurrection time is very wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little as 3 minutes. The longest we have heard of has been 8 hours. In the case of this patient it was 2 hours, 1 minute, and 7 seconds. ."

We watched the screen as a red light started flickering in the brain. "It restarts the brain. . ?" Lori questioned.

"No. . Just the brain stem. Basically it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive. . ?" Rick asked as he stepped closer to Dr. Jenner.

Dr. Jenner lifted his arm up towards the screen, "You tell me."

"It's nothing like before. . Most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobes, the neocortex, the human part doesn't come back, the you part. Just a shell driven by human instinct."

As we were watching the screen we watched as a gun was shot in the patient's head. "God. . . what was that. . ?" Carol asked.

"He shot his patient in the head," Andrea answered. "Didn't you." Andrea looked at Dr. Jenner.

"Vy power down the main screen and the workstations." Was all he said.

"Powering down main screen and workstations." Vy stated.

"You have no idea what it is, do you," I said.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." Dr. Jenner said.

"Or the wrath of God," Jacqui said.

"There is that too. ."

"Somebody must know something," I said, stepping closer to Dr. Jenner. "Somebody. Somewhere."

"There are others. . . right?" Carol asked in a worried tone. "Other facilities?"

"There may be some," He answered. "People like me."

"But you don't know. How can you not know?!" Rick asked.

Dr. Jenner sighed, "Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."

"So it's not just here. . there's nothing left anywhere. Nothing. That's what you're really saying, right?" I asked, tears in my eyes.

He said nothing.

"Oh my God. . ." I whispered as I leaned against the desk.

Daryl started walking around, "Man, I'm going to get shit faced drunk. Again."

"Dr. Jenner," Dale said, "I know this has been for you and I hate to ask ONE more question, but. . . that clock. . it's counting down. What happens at zero?"

"The. . . basement generators they run out of fuel."

"And then. . . ?" Rick asked.

He said nothing.

"Vy, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility-wide contamination will occur." Vy stated.

"T-Dog, Glenn, and Shane. Follow me." Rick ordered as he started running down the steps.


	11. Chapter 11

Everybody started walking back to their rooms just in case they needed to get everything ready to grab and leave. As I was walking back to my room I heard a weird groaning, it was coming from Trevor's room. I knocked and no response. I opened it slightly and peeked in, Trevor was hunched over on the floor and groaning. My mind went to the worse, was his bitten? I slowly walked towards him, weary that he might be one of them. I grabbed his shoulder and quickly turned him over, he wasn't one of them. I sighed in relief, he was just hungover. "Oh. . Hey, Jade." He mumbled.

My mind went to what happened last night, I lifted his head up with one hand and pointed at my neck with the other. "Do you know who did this?!" I yelled. He squeezed his eyes shut but then opened them back up, "N-no. . ?" I headbutted him, "It was you, you piece of shit!" He grabbed his head as he layed on the ground, "You're going to regret that!" He yelled. I kicked him at his stomach repeatedly and when I was done I spat on his face. I wiped my mouth off and left the room.

When I entered my room I started putting clothes and the few supplies I had left into my backpack. All of a sudden I feel a pair of arms around my neck and waist, choking me. "Let. . go. . !" I managed to gasp out. I tried to get free but it was no use. I started looking around the room for something to use to make noise to get anybody's attention. I saw a lamp on the table beside the bed, I start whaling my legs around until I managed to knock it over. Everything started slipping into blackness so I decided to start kicking at his legs as hard as I could. "God Damnit!" He yelled, letting go of me. I stumbled my way out of the room and into the hallway.

I leaned against the wall as I went down the hall, "Help me. . !" I huffed out. "Help. . !" Trevor pulled me by my hair and yanked me back, I yelled in pain. Everybody opened their doors, Dale and Daryl grabbed Trevor off of me and took him back in there, you could hear Daryl yelling at him and Dale trying to talk some sense into him. Carol and Jacqui helped me up, "What's wrong with him?!" Jacqui said. "Thanks for helping me up, you guys." "Do you want me to help you to your room?" Carol asked. I shook and head and slowly walked back into my room.

I fell backwards onto my bed and sighed loudly, "Could this day get any worse. . .?" Just then the lights in my room went off. ". . . I should've kept my stupid mouth shut." I grabbed my backpack and left my room. I could hear everybody ask Dr. Jenner what's going on and all he said was, "Energy use is being prioritized." "Air isn't a priority?" Dale asked. "It's not up to me," Dr. Jenner replied, "Zone 5 is shutting itself down."

"Hey! Hey! What the hell does that mean?" Daryl asked.

Dr. Jenner ignored him and kept walking.

"Hey! I'm talking to you! What do you mean it's shuttin' itself down? How can a buildin' do anythin'?"

"You'd be surprised."

Rick, T-Dog, Glenn and Shane came running back in from the basement.

Everybody started following Dr. Jenner right on his heels. "Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked in a stern tone.

"System is dropping all non-essential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. It probably just reached the half-hour mark." He pointed at the clock as we entered the room, "Right on schedule." He took a swig of alcohol and handed it to Daryl. "It was the French," He said out of nowhere, as he looked at me.

I gave him a confused look, "W-what. . ?"

"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. . While our people were bolting up the doors and committing suicide in the hallways they stayed in the labs until the end. . They thought they were close to a solution."

"What happened. . ?"

"Same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran outta juice. . The world runs on fossil fuels. I mean, how stupid is that?"

Shane ran up the stairs after Jenner, "Let me tell ya. . !"

Rick held Shane back, "I'm done with it, Shane! I don't even care." He pointed at Lori, "Lori, grab our things. Everybody grab your stuff we're getting out of here. NOW!" He yelled.

Everybody nodded and started heading towards the door, except for me since I already had my backpack with all of my supplies with me. All of a sudden an alarm goes off, "What the hell is that?!" Shane yells. "30 minutes to decontamination." Vy states. I watch as Dr. Jenner walks over to something and starts pushing buttons, "C'mon! You have to tell us what's going on!" I yell. "Everybody ya'll heard Rick, get your stuff and let's go! Go now! Go!"

Before anyone could even get close to the exit it was closed. "Did you just lock us in?!" Glenn asked, you can tell his was scared because of the tone of his voice. Dr. Jenner ignored him, sat at a computer and began recording himself talking. "HE JUST LOCKED US IN!" Glenn screamed. Everyone looking around, panicking because they didn't know what to do. Daryl started charging after Dr. Jenner, "You sonuvabitch!" "Shane!" Rick yelled. Glenn and Shane held Daryl back, "You locked us in here!" Daryl yelled.

Rick walked up to Dr. Jenner, "Jenner open up that door. Now."

"There's no point. Everything top side is locked down, and the emergency exits are sealed."

"Well open the damn things!" I heard Trevor yell.

"That's not something I control, the computers do. I told you 'Once that front door closed it won't open again,' You heard me say that." Everybody looked at Dr. Jenner, either they were glaring at him or looking at him with eyes full of fear. "It's better this way. ."

Rick got closer to Dr. Jenner, "What is? What happens in 28 minutes?"

No response.

Shane slammed his hand on the desk next to Dr. Jenner and Rick yelled, "WHAT HAPPENS?!"

Dr. Jenner stood up and began yelling, "Do you know what this place is!? We've protected the public from VERY nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola sprays that can wipe out the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! EVER!" We all stared at him in silence for a moment, until he spoke up again, "In the event of a catastrophic power failure and a terrorist attack, for example. H.I.T.'s are deployed to prevent any organisms getting out."

"H.I.T's?" Rick questioned.

"Vy, define."

"H.I.T. High-Impulse Thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum pressure ignites the oxygen, between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired." Vy states.

"It sets the air on fire," Jenner explains, dumbing it down.

I slide down the side of the desk, so that I'm sitting on the ground. I start having fits of laughing hysterically mixed in with crying. Carol hugged Sophia as they cried. "No pain," Dr. Jenner began, "An end to sorrow. . . Grief. . Regret. . Everything." Daryl ran over to the sealed exit and threw his bottle of beer against it as he screamed. "Open the damn door!" He yelled at Dr. Jenner. "Outta my way!" Shane yelled as ran towards the sealed exit with an axe and starting hitting it. T-Dog threw Daryl an axe, Daryl went to the door and starting hitting it with the axe next to Shane.

I put my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around me knees and buried my head in my arms. Dr. Jenner sighed, "You should've left well enough alone. . It would've been easier. ."

"Easier for who?" I yell through my arms.

"All of you. You know what's out there. . A short, brutal life and an agonising death. Your sister. . What was her name?"

I look up from my arms and I glare at Dr. Jenner, "Kira. ." I whisper.

"You know what this does. You've seen it," He looks up at Rick, "Is that really what you want for your wife and so-"

"I. Don't. Want. This!" Rick said, pointing to the ground.

Shane leaned against a desk. "Can't make a dent. . ." He huffed.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Dr. Jenner informed.

"But your head ain't!" Daryl yelled, coming after Dr. Jenner.

"Woah! Woah! Woah! Daryl, don't!" Everybody said as they held him back.

"You DO want this," Dr. Jenner stated, looking at Rick. "Last night, you said you knew it was a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."

We all looked at Rick, shocked at what we were hearing. "D-did you really say that. . .?" I whispered.

"Wait, you really said that? After your big talk?" Shane asked.

Rick looked around the room, "I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?"

"There is not hope," Dr. Jenner said plainly. "There never was."

"There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here. But somebody, somewhere," Rick replies, stepping closer to Dr. Jenner.

"What part of everything's gone don't you understand?" Andrea snaps.

"Listen to your friend, she gets it. This is what takes us down. This is. . . our extinction event."

"This isn't right," Carol cried, "You can't keep us here!"

"One tiny moment, a millisecond. No pain," He informed.

"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol started crying more.

"Wouldn't it be kinder, to be more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?"

We heard a cock of a gun and turned around to see Shane holding a shotgun. "Shane! Don't do this!" Rick yelled. "Just get out of my way, Rick!" Shane yelled right back. Shane pointed the gun straight at Dr. Jenner's face but he seemed unfazed, "Open the door or Imma blow your damn head off. DO YOU HEAR ME?!" Rick got close to Shane, "Brother, brother, this is NOT the way. If you do this we'll NEVER get out of here." "Shane you listen to him." Lori pleaded. "Shane, if he dies we al-" Rick was cut off my Shane's loud screaming. "Shane, no!" Rick yelled. Shane moved the gun away from Dr. Jenner's head and started shooting at the computers beside him over and over again.

I watched, horrified, as Rick fought the gun off of Shane, shooting some lights in the process. When Rick got the gun from Shane he shoved the butt of it into his stomach and he fell to the ground. Rick was about to hit him in the head with it but stopped himself in the heat of the moment, "You done there? Are. You. Done?" "Yeah, I guess we all are," Shane snapped at Rick. Rick handed the shotgun to T-Dog and noticed everybody was looking at him. It was silent for a moment until Rick spoke up, "I think you're lying. . ."

"What?" Dr. Jenner asked, looking up at Rick.

"You're lying," He stated, "About no hope. If that were true you would've bolted with the rest and taken the easy way out. You didn't, you chose the hard path. . Why?"

"It doesn't matter. . ."

"It does matter," Rick said, smirking as he approached him. "It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"

"Not. Because. I wanted to. I made a promise." He stood up from his chair and started pointing up at the dark screen, "To her. . . My wife."

We all looked at him for a moment. "Subject 19 was your wife. . ." I said.

"She begged me to keep going for as long as I could. . How could I say no. . ?" We heard Daryl keep swinging the axe at the door in the background. "She was dying. . It should've been me on the table, it wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the WORLD. Hell, she ran this place and I just worked here. In our field she was an Einstein! Me? I'm just. . Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me."

"Your wife didn't have a choice, you do. That's all we want. A choice. . . A chance."

"Let us keep trying as long as we can. ." Lori pleaded.

Dr. Jenner looked around at all of us for a moment, sighed and started walking towards a computer, "I told you Top Side's locked down, I can't open those." He started pushing buttons on the computer and it opened the door.

"C'mon!" Daryl yelled as he grabbed his stuff and ran down the hallway.

"C'mon, let's go!" Glenn yelled, following Daryl.

Everybody started running but Andrea, Jacqui, Dale and myself. Rick started talking to Dr. Jenner but after that he came to my side, "We have to go, Jade! Come on! We can survive this we can find answers somewhere else! Please, don't give up. . !"

"I don't want answers anymore. I want my life back, I want my family back and I want things to be normal again." I said weakly, but with determination in my voice.

Rick reached out his hand towards my shoulder, but I shrugged him away. "You can do this, Jade. We're your family now and we will make things normal again. . ."

A tear streamed down my face. I whispered while looking down at my hands, "I've been trying to hold on to reality, but ever since I lost Kira I've been adrift. . . I've been holding on by a single thread, but now it's my chance to be with her again, Rick! I can't pass this opportunity. . I'm sorry."

"You should know that's now h-!" Rick was cut off by Lori.

"Hurry, Rick! We have to go. Now!" Lori pleaded.

Rick looked torn between us. "I- We have to go now, Jade!" He started running for the exit but I stayed in my spot.

I heard a chuckling, "I didn't know you were such a wimp, Jade." I turned my head to see Trevor.

"Leave me alone, Trevor. . ."

"And why should I do that? I love seeing you down in the dumps! I love seeing you angry and pissed off at the world. Do you know what Kira would think of you if she knew that you were giving up so easily? She would be so disappointed in you. When she thought you were dead she kept going and she was younger than you. . You're so pathetic, Jade!" He started laughing as hard as he could.

I stood up, "Shut up, you asshole!" I ran towards him and punched him in the face. Tears started rushing down my cheeks, even though he was an asshole he was right. . . I am pathetic. I'm so lost without Kira but she would want me to keep going and be strong for me and everybody else in my life. Should I stay or should I go. . . ?


	12. Chapter 12

I took a deep breath in and out. I wasn't going to stay in here to die anymore. I started running down the hallway but was stopped by a hand around my ankle, causing me to fall on my face. I kicked the hand away, "Leave me alone, Trevor! I'm not going to die in here anymore!" "I want you to stay down here and die!" He hissed. "But I want you to suffer before it all happens! You will stay down here and die, god damnit!" He got up and started kicking me, once he thought I was too hurt to move he started running for the exit.

Tears started coming out of my eyes as I tried to crawl my way down the halls. "God damnit. . . !" I muttered to myself. Frustrated I layed my head down on the carpet and kept crying. "There's Jade. . !" I heard a voice say. I felt myself being picked up and my arms being wrapped around two things. . they were necks. My vision was blurry with tears but the next thing I knew was that I was being shoved into the ground and hearing a loud explosion. "W-. . . What happened?" I whispered. My vision got better and I saw Dale and Andrea looking down at me. "You need your rest," I heard Dale say. I saw him notion somebody over here, it was Rick. "You're okay. . !" He pulled me into a tight hug, but I stayed limp.

He lifted me up bridal style, carried me into the R.V. and laid me down on the bed for me to rest. He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and gave me a light smile, "I'm really glad you're okay. . ." I smiled back at him, "Me too. . . Rick, listen I'm sorry about last ni-" "Don't worry about it, I understand. . Get some sleep you need to rest, you hear me?" I laughed a little, "Okay. . ." He ruffled my hair, "I'll see you when you wake up, okay?" I nodded and watched him as he left the R.V. and slowly drifted off into sleep.

I jolted up from a nightmare I had, I sighed in relief when I noticed I was in the RV. I got off the bed and made my way to the front seat of the RV. Shane and Andrea nodded at me and I nodded back in response. "How you feeling?" Dale asked as I sat next to him.

I sighed, "I-. . As good as it's gonna get I guess."

He didn't keep his eyes off the road, just in case, "You're a strong woman, Jade. You'll make it as far as you want to. Nothing is going to stop you but yourself."

I smiled, "You're so wise, Dale. Hopefully I can be a little like you someday. ."

He smiled and shook his head, "You probably will. . We all take a piece of somebody that we meet in our lives and put them into ourselves, making us more unique and. . . Oh no. ."

The RV started making weird noises so he pulled the RV over and got out, everybody else followed right behind him. Dale took off his hat and started fanning himself off, "I said it, didn't I say it? A thousand times. . . Dead in the water." Shane walked up to the RV, "Problem, Dale?"

"Well just the small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere while no hope of. . ." Dale looked around for a moment. "Okay, that was dumb."

"Can't find a radiator hose here." Shane sighed.

"A whole bunch of stuff we can find." Daryl informed as he looked through the back of a car.

"Cyphine more fuel from these cars for a start." T-Dog said.

"Maybe some water?" Carol asked in a worried tone. "Food?"

"This place is a graveyard." Lori said plainly. We all looked at her for a moment then looked around at all of us in silence. "I don't know how I feel about this. ."

"C'mon ya'll," Shane announced, "just looked around. Gather what ya can."

I watched as everybody started spreading out to look for supplies. I could feel a pair of eyes on me, I turned around to see that Trevor was glaring at me from a few feet away. I scoffed and walked away, trying to get as far away from him as possible. I opened a car door and began looking for anything that we could use for supplies. As I was searching the car something shiny caught my eye, it was a gun, but the problem was that it was in a walker's pocket. I slid out my knife and stabbed the walker in the head before I proceeded to grab the gun. When the gun was in my possession I checked how many bullets it had, only three.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, I turned around instantly and aimed the gun in that direction. I sighed to see that it was Rick. "How ya holdin' up?" He asked, leaning against the car.

"Fine." I replied.

He sighed, "I know that's a lie, Jade. ."

I scowled, "Why do you care anyways? You wouldn't care if I died in that explosion anyways. . ."

In a split second Rick was in my face, "Don't you ever say that, Jade! I care about you. . . I'm sorry that I left you. I thought you weren't coming out so I had to leave, I couldn't just leave my family without me. I promise I won't leave you alone ever again."

I looked at him with tears in my eyes but I held them down. "Trevor tried to kill me again."

Rick's eyes widened, "What?! When. . ?"

I leaned my head against the headrest and sighed, "Before the explosion. . . I realized that I wanted to make it in this world but Trevor tried to stop me. . Thanks to Dale and Andrea I made it out alive."

Rick was speechless.

"I'm going to kill Trevor." I said with a straight face.

"You can't do that, Jade. . We don't kill the living. We can just tell him to leave the group and if he doesn't we'll force him, okay?"

I shook my head. "No. I am going to kill him. Whether you like it or not. . You don't understand how much pain he has caused me. He killed Kira, Rick. . !"

Rick pulled me into a hug. I buried my face into his neck and started bawling. Rick made me feel comfortable and safe enough to put my defenses down and I knew he wouldn't judge me. He makes me feel things I've never experienced before, he makes my heart leap out of my chest and puts butterflies in my stomach. I'm in love with Rick but he could never love me. . He has Lori and Carl and I'm nothing special. .

I pulled away from him and wiped my eyes, "I have to do it, Rick. I'm sorry."

Rick gave me a sad look that made me feel guilty, "When are you going to do it. . ?"

I shrugged, "Don't know. But it has to be done soon."

He sighed, "Can't we talk to him first. . ?"

I shook my head, "No, Rick! I want to hurt him like he has hurt me and Kira! He needs to pay."

He laid his hand on my shoulder and looked away from me, "Do what you think is right, Jade. ." He moved his hand off my shoulder and walked away from me.

I watched as he left, each step he took father away from me made the pit in my stomach go deeper. I sighed in frustration as I got out of the car. I leaned my elbows against the roof of the car and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to think about what I should do. I was snapped out of my thought by sounds of loud growls in the distance, "Oh fuck. . !" I whispered to myself. I tried looking for the others in the distance but didn't see them.

I crouched down to the ground and quietly made my way towards the RV, I had to make sure that everyone was okay. On my way to the RV I noticed that everybody was under the cars, I sighed in relief and decided to go under one myself. "Hey." I heard a voice say so quiet I could barely hear, I turned my head to see Trevor, he was giving me a menacing look. My eyes widened and I started crawling my way from under the car but Trevor grabbed my hand. I managed to pull away from him and get up from the ground, I started running away from him and hid behind a car, hoping I didn't attract any walkers.

I peeked over the car and sighed in relief when I didn't see any walkers coming my way. I was pulled up from the ground from someone pulling at my hair, I yelped in pain. "You're finally goin' to die today, you bitch." He whispered in my ear. "Let me go." I said through my teeth." "Not gonna happen. ." He coed in my ear.

He yanked me along closer and closer to the hoard of walkers. When we got close enough Trevor started whistling, trying not to attract too many of them. About 4 of them came towards us, Trevor held both of my wrists together with one hand and my hair with the other, pushing me towards the walkers. I tried to fight back but it didn't work, tears started come out of my eyes. Did no one want to help me? Or did they not see. . ? I heard the sound of a gun shot in the distance and soon after the sound of Trevor groaning in pain. I looked around to see Rick holding his sniper rifle, Rick instantly went back down into hiding and I stepped away from Trevor, hiding in a good spot to watch the walkers eat him.

I got out from under the car when I thought the coast was clear, I stabbed the walkers in the head that were still eating at Trevor, he was still alive. He looked like he was in so much pain, this was too perfect! I started kicking him in the stomach and laughing hysterically until he died. "Wouldn't want him to turn into a walker. . ." I smirked as I kneeled down to his level, sliding out my knife. I lunged my knife through his skull and it felt amazing. I kept stabbing him in the head over and over again until I was stopped by a hand around my wrist, "That's enough, Jade." Rick said firmly.

I yanked my hand away from him and before he could say anything we heard a scream coming from a certain direction. "Sophia!" Carol yelled. Rick grabbed his gun and began running after Sophia, "Sophia!" He called. A few minutes later Rick returned, "Shane, Glenn and Daryl come help with me." They nodded and and followed Rick into the woods. I walked up to Carol who kept her eyes on the woods. "They'll find her. . ." She looked at me with a worried expression, "What if they don't, Jade?" I rubbed her shoulder, "They will. . ."

In the distance we saw Glenn and Shane come back. "We should start moving cars to get the RV ready to turn around when they come back with Sophia," Shane informed. Everyone nodded and started moving them. I started walking around to see if I could find more supplies, as I was walking around I saw Carl reaching inside a car. "Whatcha got there, Carl?" I asked, peeking over his shoulder.

He jumped "Don't scare me like that!"

I laughed a little, "Haha, sorry!"

He grinned and began pulling out and object. As he pulled it out the dead walker snapped and fell over a little, causing Carl to scream. As Carl fell backwards I caught him, "You okay?" He nodded and set the object on the floor and unrolled it, "Woah. . ! It's an arsenal!" Carl exclaimed. He pulled out something, "Woah, look it's a machete, Jade!" "Be careful with that, Carl." He nodded, "I'm going to go show mom!" I smiled, "Okay, sweetie." I rubbed his head and watched him as he ran over to Lori. I sighed and leaned against the car, I didn't have anybody.

A few minutes later Carl came back to me with a disappointed look on his face, "What's wrong, Carl?"

He sighed, "Mom and Shane got mad at me and told me to give the weapons to Dale. ."

I rubbed his back, "That sucks. . . Maybe when you're older your mom will let you use them. Just know that they're not toys. . They can hurt people."

He leaned his head against my shoulder, "I know. . Thanks for talking to me, Jade."

I smiled, "Let's go to everybody, okay?"

He nodded, "Okay."

When we got over to everybody they were listening to a radio. "What's goin' on?" I asked when we got close enough. They all hushed me and listened to the radio carefully. "Please do not venture out. Remain calm. Help is on the way." Shane sighed and turned off the radio, "Asshole." He looked around at everybody, "Okay, let's get back to work those cars aren't gonna move themselves. . ." I stood there in place while everybody was moving back to their spots, was there actually going to be help? I doubted it but a very tiny glimmer of hope was sparked inside me.


	13. Chapter 13

I stood next to Carol, waiting for Rick and Daryl to come back and hopefully with Sophia by their sides. The sun was setting and my hope for her return went away bit by bit. Carol tightened her grip on my forearm and whispered, "They're back." Her whisper was so quiet that I could hardly understand what she said but I saw them emerge from the trees without her. We looked at Rick for a moment and he shook his head.

Rick and Daryl got up to Carol and I. "Did you find her?" Carol sniffled.

"Her trail got cold," Rick put his hand on her shoulder. "We'll look again tomorrow at first light."

"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own to spend the night alone in the woods."

"Searchin' in the nights no good," Daryl informed. "We'd be trippin' over ourselves. More people gettin' lost.."

"She's twelve she can't be out there on her own. . ! You didn't find anything?" Carol looked at Rick with tears in her eyes.

"I know this is hard but I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there." Rick said.

"We've been tracking her for a while." Daryl chimed in.

"We have to make this an organized effort. Daryl knows the woods better than anybody, we'll ask him to oversee this."

Carol looked down at Daryl's pants and started to hyperventilate, "I-is that blood?"

"We took down a walker," Rick informed Carol, but she kept squirming around. "There was no signs of it being anywhere near Sophia."

"How could you guys be sure?" I asked, looking Rick in the eyes to make sure he wasn't lying.

Rick and Daryl looked at each other for a moment and Daryl began talking, "We cut the sum bitch open. Made sure."

Carol let out a shaky sigh and sat down on, "How could you just leave her out there to be killed? How could you just leave her?!"

"Listen, the walkers were on us. . I had to draw them off, it was her best chance."

I sat next to Carol and put my hand on her shoulder, "It seems like he didn't have a choice, Carol. . He had Sophia's best interest in mind."

"How is she supposed to find her way back on her own? She's just a child. . She's just a-. . ."

"It's was my only option. . The only choice I could make."

Carol began crying, "My little girl got left alone. . ."

I hugged Carol and rubbed her back soothingly as she cried in my neck. It felt weird that I wasn't the one crying this time, it felt like I've always been crying since I woke up from my coma. How much more could this group of myself can take before we all break? I had no idea but it felt like I was going to give at any moment but we have to try to make things better, we just have to. . When Carol was done crying I took her to the RV and laid her on the bed. I was about to leave but Carol called out my name. I turned to look at her, "Yeah?" She seemed like she was conflicted about what she was about to say next. ". . H-how did. . How did you deal with Kira's death. . . ?"

Her sudden question was like a sharp punch to my stomach and heart. I leaned against the wall and looked out the window, avoiding eye contact with her. "I don't think I've really dealt with it. ." I put my head down, making my hair cover my face. "I-I'm not sure exactly HOW to deal with it. I've cried constantly like a baby but it still hurts. . . probably even worse. Every day the pain gets more and more intense but I guess thinking that she isn't suffering puts me at ease. . ." I looked over at her and she looked full of despair. "I'm guessing that's not the answer you wanted to hear. . " I sighed and smiled weakly, "But it's the truth. . "

She smiled back a little, "Thank you for telling me the truth. . . I just hope my little girl is okay. ."

I hugged her one last time and went out of the RV. I saw Rick sitting on the hood of a car away from everybody. I sighed and decided to get the courage to go over there and talk to him. I put my hand on his shoulder, "Hey. ."

He looked over at me and sighed, "Hey."

I stood in front of him and held his hand in his lap, "You're doing all you can. . You're not to blame."

He looked up from his lap and into my eyes, "I know. . . It just feels like I could do more and I probably should."

I smiled at him, "Rick. . . You put your best in everything and put everybody's best interest in everything so don't feel bad, okay. . .?"

He sighed, "I dunno. . ."

"Don't worry, Rick, we'll find her." I squeezed his hands and kissed him on the forehead. "Get some rest."

I walked back over to the RV and climbed up the ladder to the top of it, nobody was up there. I sighed and laid down to looked up at the stars. After a few minutes of stargazing, I slowly drifted into sleep. I was woken up by Dale, he was fidgeting with something. When he noticed I was awake he apologized. I rubbed my eyes, "It's okay, Dale." I began looking around. "What time is it anyways. . .?" He looked at his wrist for a moment and back to me, "About 6:30. I could wake you up later if you'd like." I shook my head, "Nah. . I'm good."

I got up and headed down the RV's ladder to hear arguing. "You need to get over it," Shane said to Andrea. I went up to Rick's side, "What's going on?" Rick turned his head to me and gestured his hand towards the weapons on the hood of a car, "Everybody's taking a weapon, but no guns. Andrea isn't too happy about it." I smiled, picked up a hatchet and examined it in my hands, "I don't see what the big deal is. A weapon is a weapon." Daryl's voice got my attention away from the hatchet. "The idea is to take the creek over. 'Bout 5 miles turn around come back down on the other side. Chances are she'll be by the creek. That's our only landmark." "Stay quiet and stay sharp. Keep space between you and always stay in sight of each other." Rick informed us before we headed out.

We were walking through the trees, keeping our eyes peeled for Sophia. Carl tried talking to Shane but he turned him down. Carl walked beside me with his head down, I looked down at him for a moment and put my hand on his head, "Don't worry about it, okay? After we find Sophia we can do things, promise." He looked up at me and smiled weakly, "Okay." I rubbed his back and we continued to look. Daryl, who was in front, slowed down and aimed his crossbow at a tent. "You think she could be in there?" I whispered. "There could be a lot of things in there." Rick replied as he motioned us to stay behind. We watched as Shane, Rick, and Daryl went to the tent to see what was in there. As we watch Carol grabbed my arm and watched intensly.

We watched as Daryl checked the tent cautiously, Rick motioned Carol towards them. Carol looked at me with eyes full of fear, I knew she wanted me to go with her so I did. As we went towards the tent she tightened her grip on my arm and covered her mouth with her other hand. When we got to Rick he started talking to Carol, "If she's in there, yours is the first voice she should hear." Carol looked at me and then back at the tent. "Sophia. . . ? Sweetie. . ? You in there?" Daryl waited cautiously for Sophia to come out of the tent. "Sophia," Carol continued, "It's mommy. Sophia. . We're all here, baby. It's mommy. . ."

"Stay here," Rick whispered as he and Shane walked over to Daryl, aiming their guns at the tent. Daryl slowly opened the tent flap and began coughing. Daryl stepped into the tent, Rick tried following behind but started coughing and closed the flap. A few moments later Daryl wasn't out. "Daryl?" Carol called out. Nothing. "Daryl. . ?" Daryl finally stepped out, "Ain't her."

"What's in there?" I asked.

"Just some guy. He opted himself out."

We heard bells chiming in the distance and ran towards it. As we were running towards it we tried figuring out which direction it was coming from. "If we hear it Sophia probably hears it too. . !" Carol said with hope in her voice. "She may be ringing it herself, common!" Rick said, leading us to the church. When we got to the church we ran up the stairs, but slowed down and were cautious when we got to the door. When Rick and Daryl opened the church's doors three walkers turned the attention to us.

I pulled out my hatchet and slowly made my way to the female walker. When I got behind her I put my foot in front of hers and pushed her forward, causing her to trip and fall on the ground. Once she was on the ground I slammed my hatched into her skull, making her stop groaning. "Sophia!" I yelled, looking around the room. "Maybe it was a different church." Shane sighed. A few seconds later we heard the church's chimes going off again and we rushed outside. We ran down the stairs and to the side of the building, turns out it was just an automated sound box. I looked at Carol with a worried expression, she looked devastated. "I'm going to go back in for a little bit." She said.

I looked around me and everybody was off doing their own thing so I decided to check in on Carol. "Father forgive me. . ." I heard her whisper. I sat down and listened to her patiently as she talked to God. When she was done she came to me with tears in her eyes and I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and hugged her. "We're going to find her," I whispered to her as I rested my head on hers.

After she calmed down her and I headed outside with the others, soon after Shane started talking about a new game plan. "Y'all gotta follow the creek then back, Daryl you're in charge. Me and Rick we're just gonna hang back and stay around here for another hour, we're going to be thorough."

"You sure?" Daryl asked.

"Yeah," Shane replied, sighing, "We're sure."

"I wanna stay too," Carl said, "I'm her friend."

Lori hugged Carl, "Be careful, okay?"

I went up to Rick, "I'm going to go with you guys too."

Rick looked down at me, "You sure? What about Carol don't you think you should be there for her?"

I shrugged, "I think she'll be fine with them for a while and more eyes for you guys will make a better chance to find her, right?"

Rick smiled, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Rick went over to Lori and kissed her goodbye and I averted my eyes away from the scene. I walked over to Carl and tousled his hair, "I'm going with you guys if you think I'm man enough for you guys." Carl smiled widely, "Of Course, Jade! I like being around you." Rick came over to us, "We'll start looking soon but I'm going to do something first." He walked into the church and we followed behind, Carl and Shane sat on the stairs as I leaned on the church's door frame and watched him until he came back over.

"You get what you needed?" I asked with a sympathetic look.

"Guess we'll find out," Rick said, leading us the way.

After walking for about 10 minutes or so Rick paused, holding up his hand, and we all stopped. Rick pointed his arm in a direction and we all took out our weapons and started moving closer towards the crunching leaves a few feet away from us. As we inched closer we noticed that it was just a deer wandering around, we watched it for a few moments with smiles on our faces. Shane was about to shoot it, but then Rick whispered, "Shane." Shane looked back at us and Carl started moving closer to the deer.

Carl looked back at us with a huge smile on his face and we all returned it right back on him, I gave him a big thumbs up. Carl stepped on a twig, making the deer snap its head over to him, but didn't move. As Carl inched closer and closer towards the deer it was like it happened in slow motion, a loud gunshot rang through the sky and I watched as the deer and Carl toppled over for what it seemed like an eternity.


	14. Chapter 14

Tears filled my eyes immediately and I covered my eyes with my hands, hoping that when I opened them that everything would be okay. But when I opened my eyes the only thing that was different was that Rick was holding Carl and a big man with a shotgun appeared out of nowhere, his eyes bugging out in shock. "I-i didn't see him.." He whispered.

I went up to him, machete out, and started yelling as I pointed the machete right at him, ready to swing. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!" I swung at him, but he moved just in time. "YOU SHOT THIS YOUNG, INNOCENT, CHILD. AND HE MIGHT DIE BECAUSE OF YOU." I swung at him again, missing. His mouth was gaping open and then finally words came out, "I- I know how to help! I live on a farm, it's a little while away but we have a doctor! He might be able to patch up your boy!" I lowered the machete, "Where is this farm?" He said nothing but pointed. I looked at Rick and he started running and we all followed.

We ran for what seemed like forever, my legs felt like rubber as I ran and I just wanted to quit, not just running but everything. I felt as though Carl was like a brother to me or even a son and I don't know if I could bare another death of someone close to me. The fat man started slowing down and I grabbed him by the collar and yelled, "Move, fatass! We have to go!"

"How far!? HOW FAR?!" Rick yelled at him.

The fat man wheezed and pointed, "That way! Talk to Hershel! He'll help your boy!"

Shane grabbed the fat man while I caught up to Rick. When the farmhouse came into view I was hoping they were actually going to help us and not some weird cannibals. My eyes jerked to Rick when I saw that he started having trouble carrying Carl but I knew he wouldn't let go of him, not yet. When we got to the farmhouse there were a few people standing on the porch, "Was he bit?" The old man called out. Rick was out of breath so I decided to talk for him, "He got shot.. shot by your man." I puffed out. One of the women sounded shocked, "Otis?"

"He said we needed to find a man named Hershel, are you him?" I asked, catching my breath.

He nodded, "Get the boy in the house!"

We followed him inside and he started instructing his people on what to do while he led us to a bedroom for Carl to lay down in. Rick laid him down, he seemed dazed so I made him sit on the chair near the bed and waited for Hershel's instructions. "Pillowcase," he said simply. I grabbed the pillowcase. "Fold it like a pad." I folded it like a pad, I could hear Rick keep asking 'Is he alive?' and every time I heard him ask it broke my heart a little more each time.

"Put pressure on the wound," Hershel said, breaking my train of thought. I did as he said and watched as he put a stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat. "I've got a heartbeat," he informed. I sighed heavily in relief and it felt like a bunch of weight was lifted off, but we still didn't know if he would survive so I couldn't find a lot relief anytime soon. "We need some space," Maggie said. "Names?" Hershel asked. "J-jade and this is Rick," I said. "Well, Jade and Rick we're gonna' do everything we can, okay?" I nodded and grabbed Rick, who was right next to me, and left the room.

When we stepped out of the room we saw Shane and Otis approaching the house, Shane kept yelling at Otis to move it. We walked out onto the porch to meet them, our minds still in a daze. Rick took off his hat when the approached, Otis was the first to speak. "Is he alive? Is he still alive?" He asked. Rick said nothing in response and wiped his face with the back of his hand, causing blood to cover his face. Shane pulled out a pink cloth and was about to start wiping his face clean of blood but I offered to do it so he gave me the cloth. I turned to face Rick and started wiping his face off gently. As I was wiping his face clean I murmured to him that everything was going to be okay, even though I didn't believe it myself. Rick looked pained and took the pink cloth in his hands and went inside. Before Shane could follow him I pulled him back for a second and whisper in his ear, "They found his pulse, b-but we don't know a lot right now. ." Shane nodded and we entered the house as we followed Rick back into the room Carl was in. "Do you know his blood type?" Hershel asked as soon as we came in the room.

"A positive" Rick replied, "Same as mine."

Hershel looked back at Rick but kept his pressure on Carls wound, "That's fortunate, don't wander too far I'm going to need you." Hershel then looked at Otis, "What happened."

Otis looked dumbfounded and was trying to look for the right words to say, "I. . . was tracking a buck. . . Bullet went through it. . Went clean through. . ."

Hershel lifted up the pillowcase he was using to apply the pressure for to examine the wound, "The deer slowed down the bullet, which certainly saved his life." He paused for a moment, "But it did not go through clean. It broke up into pieces, if I can get the bullet pieces out, I'm counting six"

Otis went over to his wife and kept whispering to her about how he didn't know that anybody else was out there and how he didn't mean to shoot Carl or hurt anybody. Rick looked like he was about to cry again and it looked like it pained him to even speak but he did it anyways, "Lori doesn't know. . . My wife doesn't know. ." He started to weep so I gave him a hug and he put his head in my neck. "We'll find a way to tell her and the others, I promise," I said, rubbing his back softly. After a few moments of hugging him, I lead him into the kitchen and he sat down at a chair between me and Shane. "Why'd I let him come with us. . ?" Rick said, breaking the silence, "I should've set him with Lori."

"If you start like that, you'll never get that monkey off your back," Shane warned.

I placed my hand on his and squeezed it, "Rick. . you will never know what is going to happen next and who knows maybe something would've happened to him still even if he was with Lori. Let's just hope for the best and be glad that we have a doctor helping us with him. Otis could've ended up not knowing a doctor and we would've been in an even worse situation. So please, Rick, don't blame yourself."

"Little girl goes missing, you look for her, simple," Rick said. "You said to call it and head back."

"Forget what I said-" Shane started to speak but was cut off my Rick.

"Carl got shot because I didn't agree to head back. . . He shouldn't be in there. . I should be the one in there."

Rick was looking down at the table and I lowered my face near the table so he could see my face, "It's not your fault, Rick. . ."

"You've already been there, partner," Shane said to Rick. "You pulled through and so will he."

"Is that why I got out of that hospital? Found my family? For it to end here like this? Is this some sort of sick joke?" Rick was starting to sound angry so I gently rubbed the hand I was holding with my thumb, in an effort to calm him down.

I looked Rick in the eyes, "Please. . Stop blaming yourself."

"Little girl goes missing. You look for her! It's plain and simple! We shouldn't. . ." Rick stopped talking and his lip quivered.

The door to the room Carl is in and it's Maggie, "Rick!" Rick quickly gets up from the chair and enters the room Carl is in, Shane and I follow behind him. "He needs blood," Maggie informed when Rick entered the room. "You! Hold him down," Hershel instructed Shane. I leaned against the door frame as I watched numbly as Carl was groaning and screaming in pain and tears fell down my cheeks. I shook my head slowly, in an effort to get back to reality, and started walking away from the room to find a bathroom. I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard Rick scream, "You're killing him!" Hershel said something in response but it wasn't loud enough for me to hear.

When I found a bathroom I splashed some water on my face and place my hands on the sink to steady myself. "Why am I so pathetic?" I muttered to myself. "Why do I cry all the time? Why can't I be strong? Why does my temper just snap? Am I going crazy. . ?" I slowly lifted my head up and looked at my reflection and I snorted and rolled my eyes. I looked like crap, I had bags under my eyes, dried blood on my face and my hair was all tangled. I didn't care about my appearance anymore. "Stop being so pathetic and be strong," I whispered to my reflection. I breathed in and out a few times to keep myself calm and collective and I walked out of the bathroom.

When I entered the living room I saw that Rick, Shane, Otis and his wife were outside. I walked out onto the porch, "What's going on?" I asked Rick.

"They are going to go to the high-school to find a respirator for Carl. He's alright for now, but one of the fragments has nicked one of his blood vessels and Hershel needs to get in there and stitch him up."

"It's a good thing he's alright right now and that they're going to go look for it. ." I looked over at Rick and he looked at me. "Hershel's doing good. . I think Carl is going to be okay. ."

Rick nodded slowly in response and gave me a weak smile.

"I'm going to say goodbye to them," I told Rick, walking down the porch steps and towards the truck. Shane's window was down so I placed both of my hands on the truck's door, "Good luck out there and be safe."

They both nodded at me. "Thanks, Jade," Shane said.

I bit my bottom lip and looked at Otis, "Otis. . uh I. . I am so sorry for the way I acted back there, you didn't mean to do that and I should've listened."

"It's okay," Otis said, "it's my fault things are like this and I'm going to do my best to make sure that boy is up and well again."

I smiled at them, "I really appreciate that you are doing all of this. . . Again, please be safe."

I watched as they drove off, sighing. I looked back at the porch to see if Rick was there, but he was gone. I went back into the house and into Carl's room. Rick was sitting right next to the bed as he held Carl's hand. I went to the other side of the bed and bent down to kiss his forehead. Rick and I just sat there, knowing that neither one of us wanted to talk, in silence until Hershel came to talk to Rick outside in the balcony. When they both left I looked back down at Carl and put his hand in one of mine and started stroking his hair with the other and I layed my head down on the bed as I did.

After a while of this I heard footsteps and them stopping in the room, I looked up to see Lori and Rick. Lori, mouth gaping wide open and tears coming out of her eyes, hugged Rick tightly and he hugged her right back. I got up, figuring they'd want time alone with their son and not wanting somebody like me in there anyways, and left the room. I went out onto the porch and sat on a rocking chair, the cool breeze made me feel at ease. I looked out into the scenery and it looks like all of the chaos I have seen before never even existed. I could feel my eyes getting heavier and heavier each time I rocked back and forth and I drifted into sleep.

When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see that it was pretty much dark outside, rubbing my eyes I walked into the house. When I opened the door my eyes widened when I heard arguing, it was in Carl room. I peeked my head in to see what was going on. "No!" Lori said in a half yelling half whisper tone, "Your place is here. If Shane said he'll be back, he'll be back. He's like you."

"I can't just sit here!" Rick argued.

"That's exactly what you do!" Lori snapped back. "If you need to pray or cry or tell God he's cruel you go right ahead! But you are not leaving, Rick. Carl needs you here. . . And I can't do this by myself. . Not this one. . . I can't."

I inhale and exhale deeply and open the door more and they both look at me, "I'll go."


End file.
